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ESSENTIAL CHRISTIANITY. 






ESSENTIAL CHRISTIANITY 




A SERIES OF 

EXPLANATORY SERMONS 


BY THE 

Rev. HUGH PRICE HUGHES, M.A. 

AUTHOR OF “ SOCIAL CHRISTIANITY,” THK PHILANTHROPY OF GOD,” “ ETHICAL 

CHRISTIANITY,” ETC. 


“ Quid igitur ? damnamns ve f eres ? minime : sed post pnorum studia ib 
domo Domini quid possumus laboramus.” — S. Jerome. 


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FLEMING H. REYELL COMPANY 

NEW YORK CHICAGO TORONTO 

Publishers of Evangelical Literature 





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THIS LITTLE VOLUME 


IS RESPECTFULLY AND GRATEFULLY 

3>e&tcafe6 

TO 

MY FORMER TUTOR, MY PRESENT FRIEND, 

1? lev . William ^oulfon, 

EX-PRESIDENT OF THE METHODIST CONFERENCE 

AND 

HEAD MASTER OF THE LEYS SCHOOL. 



CONTENTS. 


ESSENTIAL CHRISTIANITY 

• 

• 

• 

• • 

PAG1? 

1 

THE 

GOSPEL ACCORDING TO 

ST. 

PAUL 

• 

* • 

17 

THE 

BROTHERHOOD OF MANKIND 

• 

» • 

27 

THE 

FINAL REVELATION . 

• 

• 

• 

« • 

43 

THE 

EVERLASTING KINGDOM 

OF 

CHRIST 

• 

A • 

55 

THE 

ALL-SUFFICIENCY OF CHRIST . 

• 

• 

71 

THE 

UNANSWERABLE ARGUMENT 

FOR CHRISTIANITY . 

87 

THE 

REAL CHRISTIAN 

• 

• 

• 

• 

103 

THE 

CHRISTIAN REVOLUTION 

• 

• 

• 

• 

117 

THE 

NEW COVENANT 

• 

» 

• 

• 

133 

THE 

PENTECOSTAL BLESSING 

• 

• 

• 

• 

145 

THE 

SOCIAL GOSPEL OF JOEL 

• 

• 

• 

• 

165 

THE 

GOSPEL OF AMOS 

• 

• 

• 

• 

177 

THE 

GOSPEL OF HOSEA . 

• 




191 


Vlll 


CONTENTS, 


THE THEODICY OF HOSEA 
THE VISION OF ISAIAH . 

isaiah’s doctrine of humility . 
isaiah’s forecast of the golden age. 
micah’s ideal of religion . 
the carol of the nativity. 


PA OB 

. 203 

. 215 

. 231 

. 247 
. 257 

. 275 


INTRODUCTION. 


O NE of the stupendously significant facts of human 
history was the total failure of the scholars, 
poets, philosophers, and statesmen of the Roman 
Empire to understand the meaning or to forecast 
the triumph of the Christian religion. As Mr. W. 
E. H. Lecky declares in his “History of European 
Morals,” “ that the greatest religious change in the 
history of mankind should have taken place under 
the eyes of a brilliant galaxy of philosophers and 
historians who were profoundly conscious of the 
decomposition around them; that all these writers 
should have utterly failed to predict the issue of the 
movement they were observing ; and that during the 
space of three centuries they should have treated as 
simply contemptible an agency which all men must 
now admit to have been, for good or for evil, the most 
powerful moral lever that has ever been applied to 
the affairs of man, are facts well worthy of meditation 
in every period of religious transition.” The prac- 
tical importance of this phenomenon is immensely 
enhanced by the fact that it has been repeated at 
every critical period of Christian history. Two 


X 


INTRODUCTION. 


thousand years hence, if the world lasts so long, 
another Mr. Lecky will have to express similar 
astonishment at the intellectual and moral blindness 
of large sections of the literary men of the nineteenth 
century. For example, a celebrated expositor of 
science has quite recently thought it very clever to 
exhaust all the resources of his caustic eloquence 
in a laboured attempt to expose General Booth and 
the Salvation Army to public contempt ; and many 
literary persons have thought this a very fine per- 
formance on the part of the celebrated expositor of 
science. But no thoughtful student of human life 
can doubt that General Booth and the colossal, 
world-wide movement which he directs, will be 
potent factors in human history long centuries after 
the celebrated expositor of science and all his 
admirers have been completely forgotten, except by 
laborious antiquarians rummaging amid the dust 
and ruins of the earlier ages of Modern Science. 
Outside narrow academic circles no human being 
to-day is aware even of the names of once far- 
famed poets, philosophers, and statesmen who poured 
contempt upon the early Christians. But the names 
of those early Christians themselves are cherished 
in the hearts of ever-increasing millions in all 
lands. The astonishing Evangelical Revival of the 
last century, which all competent historians now 
acknowledge did much more to make modern 
England than all the statecraft of Pitt and all the 
victories of Wellington, was treated with similar 


INTRODUCTION. 


XI 


contempt by the literary circles of that time. But 
I need not give further illustrations of one of the 
most patent and constant facts of human history. 

It would be equally interesting and useful if some 
competent person would inquire why so many of 
the most careful and conscientious exponents of 
Modern Science seem to lose their heads and to 
violate their avowed principles of investigation the 
moment they begin to study the Christian religion. 
A new and great writer has recently appeared 
among us. Mr. Benjamin Kidd’s work on “ Social 
Evolution ” is epoch - making. Nothing in that 
profound and philosophic volume is more timely 
or impressive than the way in which he proves 
that so many of the representatives of science 
become absolutely unscientific the moment they 
approach the subject of religion. As he truly 
declares, “ the most persistent and universal class of 
phenomena connected with human society cannot be 
lightly disposed of,” * in the jaunty way that is so 
characteristic of some who profess to represent 
Modern Science. So far Science has given no 
intelligible explanation of Christianity, although 
Christianity is the most persistent, wide-spread, 
and powerful characteristic of modern European 
civilisation. “ Many of the spokesmen of Science,” 
says Mr. Kidd, “ who concern themselves with social 
problems continue to speak and act as if they con- 
ceived that their duty to society was to take away 

* “ Social Evolution,” by Benjamin Kidd, p. 16. 


xii INTRODUCTION. 

its religious beliefs.”* At the same time, they have 
no faith of their own to offer in its place, they 
“ merely ” present us, as Mr. Leslie Stephen has 
confessed, with “ a heap of vague empirical obser- 
vations, too flimsy to be useful in strict logical 
inference.” f The result of all this prejudiced and, 
therefore, utterly unscientific treatment of Chris- 
tianity is summed up by Mr. Frederic Harrison in 
the frank confession that “ the net result of the 
whole negative attack on the Gospel has perhaps 
been to deepen the moral hold of Christianity on 
society.” X One of the most curious delusions 
generated by unscientific prejudice is the notion 
that the Christian religion is losing its hold on the 
English people. Mr. Frederic Harrison knows far 
better. In our Universities, in Parliament, among 
the middle classes, and amid the great masses of 
the people, the Christian religion is a much greater 
and much more effective force to-day than it has 
ever previously been within living memory. This 
is angrily and despairingly admitted even by Mr. 
Karl Pearson, in the loud and long lament which 
he has published in the September issue of the 
Fortnightly Review. To the same effect is the 
recently expressed conviction of Mr. Tom Mann, 
that “ never was the democracy so truly religious 

* “ Social Evolution,” by Benjamin Kidd, p. 5. 

f Presidential Address, Annual Meeting of the Social and 
Political Education League, March, 1892. 

X “The Future of Agnosticism,” by Mr. Frederic Harrison, 
Fortnightly Review, January, 1889. 


INTRODUCTION. 


xiii 

as now.”* Indeed, there could be no stronger 
proof of the rapidly -increasing hold of intense 
Christianity upon the masses of the people than 
the birth and growth of the Salvation Army 
during the last quarter of a century. Nine- tenths 
of its adherents belong to the working classes, and 
upwards of two millions of persons gather at its 
public services every week. No doubt some of the 
purely human accretions of the Christian religion 
must be surrendered, and Christianity must be 
applied to public as well as to private life. But 
all this is coming, and coming very quickly, and 
coming in all directions. The prospects of Christ- 
ianity in England were never so bright as they are 
to-day. 

For this reason, if for no other, Christianity ought 
to be carefully, thoughtfully, and scientifically studied. 
It will be a more potent influence throughout the 
English-speaking world in the twentieth century 
than it has ever yet been. At present there is a vast 
amount of misconception and consequent prejudice. 
Every serious attack made on the Christian religion 
in our time has been founded on a total mis- 
conception of the nature of the Christian religion. 
Nothing is more urgently necessary than that we 
should cease to trouble ourselves about those theo- 
logical and ecclesiastical points with respect to which 
real Christians differ, as these must ex necessitate rei 
be non-essential. The great point is to discover 

* “Vox Clamantium,” p. 306. 


XIV 


INTRODUCTION. 


those vital and essential features without which 
Christianity never has existed and never can exist, 
except in name and aspiration. There is really a 
deep underlying and fundamental agreement among 
all Christians, as every hymn-book in existence 
proves. Take up the collection of hymns used by 
any organized Church, and you will find compositions 
from the pens of men who apparently differ on almost 
every imaginable theological and ecclesiastical ques- 
tion; and yet when Christianity is reduced to its 
naked essence they agree so absolutely that it is 
often quite impossible to guess to what communion 
of Christians the author of a particular hymn belongs, 
until you look for his name in the index. Simple- 
minded Christians constantly sing with intensity of 
devotion, and with rapturous accord, hymns composed 
by those whom they are trained to regard as heretics 
or schismatics of the most dangerous type. 

Let us first of all find out wherein all Christians 
agree ; then shall we be the better able to understand 
wherein they differ, and in what direction agreement, 
co-operation, and ultimate union may be achieved. 
This little volume is a very humble contribution to 
that enterprise. It is prepared for the press under 
great difficulties, at odd moments hastily snatched, 
and at long intervals amid the pressing duties of a 
very busy life. But what it lacks in grace or dignity 
of diction, which can be only slowly elaborated in 
studious literary leisure, will in scientific judgments 
be more than compensated by the fact that its 


INTRODUCTION. 


XV 


teaching is founded upon experience, and verified 
by ceaseless experiment. What this little book 
declares to be Essential Christianity has been tested 
and illustrated in the lives of thousands of men and 
women of many races and of almost every variety 
of social environment, mental culture, and spiritual 
disposition. Living contact with multitudes of 
Christians, during a public life of more than a 
quarter of a century, has generated the healthy, 
dogmatic certitude which is the ultimate justification 
for its appearance in print. It would indeed be 
intolerably presumptuous to expect any human being 
to waste a minute in reading these pages if I had 
any doubt or uncertainty with respect to the reality 
and the essentials of the living Christianity they 
expound. 

It only remains for me to add that, with one 
exception, I name from time to time, in the course 
of the volume, the various writers to whom I am 
indebted for facts, illustrations, and arguments. But 
I must gratefully mention here the one name to 
which I am, in this book, most of all indebted. 
Dr. Kirkpatrick has enabled me to understand and 
appreciate the Hebrew Prophets as I never under- 
stood and appreciated them before. 

Hugh Price Hughes. 

Rome, 

October , 1894. 




ESSENTIAL CHRISTIANITY 


“ Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who 
hath blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places 
in Christ.’' — Ephesians i. 3. 


ESSENTIAL CHKISTIANITY. 


S OME time ago there was a lively discussion in an 
enterprising London newspaper, under the 
inquiry, * Is Christianity played out ? ” That discus- 
sion gave birth to a happy phrase, * Essential Chris- 
tianity/* The great task of the twentieth century 
will be to separate Essential Christianity from the 
incrustations which have grown all over it during the 
last nineteen centuries. As a ship is put into dock 
in order to have its keel cleansed from the barnacles 
which have accumulated over it, greatly impeding 
its progress, so must Christianity be cleansed from 
all sorts of additions which well-meaning but un- 
authorised men have made to the religion of Jesus 
Christ and His apostles. Now, who is so likely as 
the Apostle Paul to tell us what that Primitive 
Christianity was ? St. Paul is the greatest of con- 
troversial theologians, the man who more than any 
other formulated the intellectual expression of 
Christianity. We owe so much to him that we are 
in constant danger of making our religion too Pauline. 


4 


ESSENTIAL CHRISTIANITY. 


But that very danger indicates the supremacy of 
his authority as an exponent of Essential Christian- 
ity. The circular letter to the Churches of Asia 
Minor, from which the text is taken, was one of 
his most thoughtful, mature, and philosophical pro- 
ductions. The text itself is a rapturous outburst 
of praise at the contemplation of what he re- 
garded as Essential Christianity. 

We shall find that it is something totally different 
from what non-Christians imagine. I have heard 
and read a great deal against Christianity, but I 
have never come across any attack which did not 
give decisive evidence that its author had no con- 
ception of what Christ and His apostles meant by 
Christianity. It is too commonly believed that 
Christianity consists in the intellectual acceptance 
of certain dogmas respecting God and man. But 
this is so far from being the case, that as John 
Wesley said in his strong and striking way a 
hundred and fifty years ago, “A man may be as 
orthodox as the Devil, and as wicked.” No man 
ever became a Christian simply by accepting the 
doctrines of the Christian religion. “ The devils also 
believe, and shudder” (James ii. 19). Opponents 
who do not make the tremendous mistake just named 
fall into the error of supposing that Christianity con- 
sists in accepting the ethical ideal of Jesus Christ, 
and in aiming at its attainment. But many Theists 
and Agnostics do that most honestly and most 
beautifully. They both accept the ethical ideal of 


ESSENTIAL CHRISTIANITY. 


O 


Christ, and to a great extent realise it in their lives, 
but they are Theists and Agnostics still. It is not 
surprising that outsiders fail so utterly to realise 
the essence of the gospel when Christians themselves 
commonly form most imperfect conceptions of the 
religion they profess. Our thoughts on this supreme 
subject are too often both shallow and fragmentary. 
The text before us, on the other hand, is both deep 
and comprehensive. At first sight it might seem 
too deep and too comprehensive for the ordinary 
reader. But we cannot forget that this epistle, like 
every other epistle, was addressed originally to 
working men, farm labourers, fishermen, slaves, and 
simple-minded women. Religion, as the late Canon 
Liddon used to contend, fertilises the intellect, as 
well as purifies the heart. Nothing is more impres- 
sive to those who know the inner life of the Christian 
Church, than the extraordinary way in which the 
most untutored minds realise “ the deep things of 
God.” May His illuminating Spirit help us to 
understand Essential Christianity now. 

The language of St. Paul teaches, in the first place 
that the blessing which God our Father gives us, and 
for which St. Paul is so ecstatically grateful, is a 
“ spiritual blessing.” Life involves capacity, capacity 
craves satisfaction, and that which satisfies is a 
“ blessing.” Human life is, roughly speaking, three- 
fold, bodily, mental, and spiritual. We have bodily 
needs; we crave food, warmth, light, and rest. We 
have mental needs ; we crave the true, and the 


6 


ESSENTIAL CHRISTIANITY. 


beautiful. We have also spiritual needs ; we crave 
peace of conscience, and the good. The satisfaction 
of our bodily needs gives us pleasure. The satisfac- 
tion of our mental needs gives us happiness. The 
satisfaction of our spiritual needs gives us bliss. 
The fatal delusion of the grosser forms of modern 
Socialism is the notion that if men have plenty to eat 
and to drink, and ample time for mental and physical 
enjoyment, they need nothing more. Why that is 
the ideal of a mere animal ! I hesitate to say this 
because I so deeply sympathise with the desire of 
working men for a much larger share of the treasure, 
the leisure, and the pleasure of life. When we 
demonstrate that these things are not the be-all and 
the end-all of existence we are in danger of being 
suspected of indifference to the legitimate aspira- 
tions of the poor. I heartily and intensely sym- 
pathise with them. I am in favour of all legislative 
and social changes by which the fruits of human 
industry may be more widely distributed among the 
industrious. But when we have done our utmost 
to create happy social environments, and to satisfy 
the physical and mental needs of men, the questions 
which Macbeth asked of his wife’s physician, still 
remain : — 

‘ ‘ Canst thou not minister to a mind diseased, 

Pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow, 

Haze out the written troubles of the brain, 

And with some sweet oblivious antidote 
Cleanse the stuff’d bosom of that perilous stuff 
Which weighs upon the heart ? ” 


ESSENTIAL CHRISTIANITY. 


7 


The decisive answer to such inquiries is found in 
West London. We have in this district unparalleled 
wealth ; and all the resources of civilisation, art and 
science are placed at the disposal of the wealthy. 
Whatever may be possible in a socialised state, it is 
inconceivable that the masses of mankind can ever 
have such treasure and leisure and pleasure as are 
now “ enjoyed ” by the privileged classes in West 
London. But are these privileged classes happy ? 
Are they satisfied ? No one who knows London can 
doubt for a moment that West London is by far the 
most dissatisfied and the most unhappy quarter of 
the metropolis. Two thousand years ago the great 
Master asked, “ What shall it profit a man if he shall 
gain the whole world and lose his own soul ? ” The 
answer is writ large in the misery of West London. 
On the other hand, St. Paul was a childless, land- 
less, homeless man. Naturally ambitious and self- 
assertive, he sacrificed wealth, leisure, lettered ease, 
and all the highest objects of human ambition, 
in order to become a persecuted and suffering 
wanderer on the face of the earth. Yet he was 
supremely and blissfully happy. Why ? Because 
the true happiness of man depends neither upon 
physical circumstances nor upon mental privileges, 
but upon “ spiritual blessing.” A familiar line of a 
familiar hymn expresses profound truth — 

* ‘ There is an aching void which God alone can fill.” 

Well did St. Augustine exclaim, “We, 0 God, were 
created for Thee, and we have no rest until we return 


8 


ESSENTIAL CHRISTIANITY. 


to Thee.” Now a “ spiritual blessing,” a blessing for 
our spirit given by the Spirit of God, is precisely 
what Christianity offers. And what is the result of 
this “ spiritual blessing ” ? How does it manifest itself 
in our experience ? The answer to that question is 
found in the ever-memorable words with which 
Christ took leave of His apostles : “ Peace I leave 
with you ; my peace I give unto you ” (St. John xiv. 
27). That was His legacy. Afterwards He added, 
“ These things I have spoken unto you, that in me 
ye may have peace” (St. John xvi. 33). 

In a word, the distinctive blessing of Christianity 
is neither health of body nor culture of mind, but 
peace of conscience, a peace so peculiarly peaceful 
that it differentiates the Christian religion from 
every other. No Buddhist, no Hindu, no Con- 
fucianist, no Mohammedan, no Agnostic experiences 
“ the peace of God which passeth all understanding.” 
That is the peculiar benediction of Christianity. 
Reading Mrs. Besant’s Autobiography I was struck 
by the significant confession that, even during the 
years of her most bitter, dogmatic, and unhesitating 
Agnosticism, she was always conscious of a certain 
dissatisfaction in her own soul.* Amid the intense 

* “ Ever more and more had been growing on me the feeling 
that something more than I had was needed for the cure of social 
ills. The Socialist position sufficed on the economic side, but 
where to gain the inspiration, the motive which should lead to the 
realisation of the Brotherhood of Man? Our efforts to really 
organize bands of unselfish workers had failed. Much indeed had 
been done, but there was not a real movement of self-sacrificing 
devotion, in which men worked for Love’s sake only, and askod 


ESSENTIAL CHRISTIANITY. 


9 


and astonishing activity of her life, writing inces- 
santly and preaching Agnosticism everywhere, she 
never realised that deep and immovable peace which 
is the heritage of every true Christian. The direct 
result of Essential Christianity is the conscious pos- 
session of such peace as Jesus of Nazareth possessed. 

The language of St. Paul teaches, in the second 
place, that the “ spiritual blessing ” which produces 
peace in our souls is enjoyed “in the heavenly 
places.” That is to say, our mental horizon con- 
stantly expands beyond the limits of time and space. 
We become citizens of heaven, fellow-citizens with 
angels and the sainted dead, friends of Jesus, 
children of God. This life is no longer the be-all 
and the end-all of our existence. There is, of 
course, a root of truth in that “ other-worldliness ” 
which Leigh Hunt and George Eliot properly con- 
demned. The best religious teachers of our time are 
quite alive to the unbalanced teaching of the past. 
Many excellent Christians were, it is confessed, so 
preoccupied with another world that they neglected 
their present practical duties in this. But the time 
has come for us to beware of the opposite extreme. 
This world is apt, as Wordsworth says, to he “ too 
much with us.” We are in constant danger of exag- 
gerating the importance of “ the things which are 

but to give, not to take. Where was the material for the nobler 
Social Order, where the hewn stones for the building of the 
Temple of Man ? A great despair would oppress me as I sought 
for such a movement and found it not ” ( Annie Besant : an Auto • 
biography , pp. 338-9). 


10 


ESSENTIAL CHRISTIANITY. 


seen and temporal ” ; and of overlooking the im- 
measurably greater importance of the things which, 
although “ unseen/’ exist and are “ eternal.” We are 
apt in the pulpit, as well as on the platform and in 
private conversation, to argue as though the whole of 
our existence were limited to the brief period of our 
residence on earth. This leads us to grossly exag- 
gerate the evil of pain and the importance of 
material circumstances. It is time to remind one 
another that “ it is appointed unto men once to die ” 
(Heb. ix. 27 ), and that this life is only the first 
chapter in our history, the threshold of an endless 
existence. As Victor Hugo has strikingly expressed 
it, we are all “under sentence of death, with an 
indefinite reprieve.” Now when we contemplate the 
present and the future from “ the heavenly places,” 
we are delivered from the fear of death ; death 
becomes a mere incident ; we realise that we shall 
live for ever, that in the deepest sense we shall 
“ never die.” We are strangers and travellers here. 
That is no reason why we should neglect our duty 
here, or why we should fail to put forth strenuous 
efforts to extend the kingdom of God on earth, and 
to make earth as like heaven as possible. But it 
is a reason why we should hold fleeting joys with 
a slack hand, and why we should not make so great 
a fuss about the misfortunes of life. 

Ere this day is done 

The voice, that now is speaking, may be beyond the sun — 

For ever and for ever with those just souls and true — 

And what is life, that we should moan ? why make we such ado ? ” 


ESSENTIAL CHRISTIANITY. 


11 


After all, as Browning teaches us so impressively in 
“ Easter Day,” heaven, and not earth, is our home. 
The more beautiful, the more delightful earth is, the 
more it should lead us to realise, to appreciate, and 
to anticipate the yet greater joys of heaven. 


“ Earth’s exquisite 
Treasures of wonder and delight ” 

are but “ one rose ” flung “ out of a summer’s 
opulence, over the Eden-barrier.” If “ the arras- 
folds that variegate the earth, God’s ante-chamber,” 
are so magnificent, “ what royalties ” are “ in store ” 
for those who “step past the entrance-door” of heaven! 

When we realise this great truth we cease to 
worry about trifles and to clutch at baubles. We 
are patient, hopeful, confident. All things are ours, 
all things are working together for good. Christ 
never forgot the Future. He never left heaven out 
of account. That larger view reduced the menacing 
forms of evil to their relative insignificance, and He 
was able to preserve the unruffled serenity of His 
soul. Man created in the image of God, and 
redeemed by the sacrifice of Christ, is too great to be 
limited to this narrow sphere and this brief life. As 
Ithaca was too small to satisfy the heroic soul of 
Ulysses, who pined even in his old age for wider 
spheres and more romantic enterprises, so does the 
emancipated soul of man resent the inevitable 
narrowness of our mortal lot, and aspire to that 
other wider, richer life which is our eternal heritage. 


12 


ESSENTIAL CHRISTIANITY. 


This then is the second striking feature of Essential 
Christianity. It embraces within the scope of its 
thoughts and hopes eternity as well as time, the 
endless future as well as the fleeting present. 

We come now, in the third and last place, to the 
most difficult and the most characteristic of the 
marks of Essential Christianity. St. Paul states in 
the text that “ the spiritual blessing ” of peace “ in 
the heavenly places ” is ours “ in Christ.” We re- 
ceive it, we enjoy it, only so far as we are united to 
Christ as the branch is united to the vine, and as the 
arm is united to the body. Here we enter upon 
* the deep things of God.” Here we stand face to 
face with what St. Paul truly calls the “ mystery of 
the Gospel.” Yet this mystery, which the thought- 
less and the superficial would regard as a meta- 
physical speculation, has had again and again a 
tremendous practical effect. Go to Trafalgar Square. 
The latest monument there is erected to General 
Gordon, one of the most active, one of the most 
influential personalities of our race and age. He was 
not a dreamy recluse, or a helpless metaphysician. 
Yet one of his three favourite books was “Christ 
Mystical, or the blessed Union of Christ and His 
Members,” by Bishop Hall ; and one who knew him 
intimately says that his view of the union between 
Christ and His members was the supreme influence 
in moulding his character and conduct. General 
Gordon was the hero whom the whole world reveres 
to-day, because he realised his living union with 


ESSENTIAL CHRISTIANITY. 


13 


Christ. The union between Christ and the true 
Christian is as real and intimate, and at the same 
time as undefinable, as the union between body and 
soul. Christ gives us His own heavenly and immortal 
peace by giving us Himself. That is Essential 
Christianity. We have now reached the distin- 
guishing truth of the Christian religion. Sir Monier 
Williams, one of our greatest authorities on Oriental 
religions, declares that this is the doctrine of Chris- 
tianity which differentiates it from every other 
religion. No Chinaman imagines for a moment 
that there is any vital union between himself and 
Confucius. No Buddhist dreams of such organic 
fellowship with Buddha. No Mohammedan would 
say, “I live, yet not I, but Mohammed liveth 
in me.” But St. Paul does say, “ I live, yet not I, 
but Christ liveth in me.” And when he says that 
he means it to b^ taken literally, as a psychological 
fact, and not as a mere metaphor or figure of speech. 
It is very remarkable and significant that every 
opponent and critic of the Christian religion in our 
own day has absolutely ignored this essential tenet 
of the Christian faith. But to discuss Christianity 
and ignore this is like discussing the play of Hamlet, 
with Hamlet absolutely left out. Who is to blame 
for the extraordinary fact that the objectors to 
Christianity always ignore the essential feature of 
Christianity ? This amazing oversight is partly, no 
doubt, because “ spiritual things are spiritually 
discerned,” and because the “mystery” of God is 


14 


ESSENTIAL CHRISTIANITY. 


“foolishness to the natural man.” But I fear the 
general ignorance concerning this vital feature of 
Essential Christianity is also, and very largely, due 
to the way in which Christian theologians, expositors, 
and pastors ignore the quintessential doctrine of 
Christianity in their regular teaching. 

And yet the permanent and continually repeated 
sacrament of the Christian Faith is intended to 
emphasise and accentuate this central truth. We 
never eat the bread and drink the wine of the Holy 
Communion without being reminded that he who 
does not eat the flesh and drink the blood of 
Jesus Christ has no life in him (St. John vi. 53) ; that 
as the bread and wine are incorporated with our 
bodies, so are we to feed upon Christ in our 
hearts by faith, in order that we may be incorporated 
with Him and He with us, and that we may con- 
tinue to enjoy a vital union with Him. Indeed, we 
are to blame for talking about “ a Christian ” when 
we simply mean a man, because a man apart from 
Christ is not a Christian, cannot be a Christian, 
loses Christianity as absolutely as my hand would 
lose its use and its meaning if it were cut off from 
my body. To think of any man apart from Christ 
is to think misleadingly and falsely about him. But 
even Christians apprehend the essential truth of their 
religion so imperfectly, and so intermittently, that 
they constantly think of themselves apart from 
Christ, and constantly contemplate their duties and 
their ideals apart from Him in whose strength alone 


ESSENTIAL CHRISTIANITY. 


15 


they are able either to do their duty or to achieve 
their ideals. The Apostle Paul said that he could do 
all things “ in Christ,” and so can every one of us. 
But “apart from” Christ we are absolutely unable to 
live the Christian life. What Christ offers to 
man is not a salvation apart from Himself, but His 
own veritable Self. He wishes to be more directly 
and vitally united to us than we can ever be united 
to any other. This He offers us as a free gift. We 
may despise it, we may reject it, but it is offered to 
us now. Let us submit to Christ, let us yield our- 
selves to Him in all simplicity and heartiness; let 
us permit Him to do what He will in us, and with 
us, and through us. Then His life becomes ours, 
and we are “ a new creation ” (Gal. vi. 15) ; the 
burden of sin vanishes, the fear of punishment 
disappears, the sense of spiritual impotence ceases. 
For the first time in our existence we really live. 




THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO ST. PAUL 


“ Wherefore we henceforth know no man after the flesh : even 
though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now we know 
Him so no more.” — 2 Corinthians v. 16. 


THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO ST. PAUL. 


I WONDER what impression this strange sentence 
produces on the mind of an average Englishman. 
Does it give him any intelligible idea at all ? Yet 
St. Paul would undoubtedly have regarded it as one 
of the most impressive and characteristic sentences 
he ever penned or uttered. There was one striking 
difference between the Apostle Paul and the other 
apostles which we have forgotten, but which neither 
he nor they ever forgot. He alone of the twelve 
never met, or saw, or heard Jesus Christ during His 
short life on earth. All the others — as St. Peter 
said when St. Matthew was elected into the apostolic 
band — had been disciples “ all the time that the 
Lord Jesus went in and went out among” them, 
“ beginning from the baptism of John unto the day 
that He was received up ” from them into heaven 
(Acts i. 21, 22). But St. Paul never knew Christ while 
He lived on earth. Now the apostles and the Jewish 
Christians attached the very greatest importance to 
this human knowledge of Christ. Some Jewish 


20 


ESSENTIAL CHRISTIANITY. 


Christians went all over the world saying that St. 
Paul was not an apostle, and could not be an apostle 
because he had never “ known Christ after the flesh.” 

But St. Paul always declared, with special emphasis 
and vehemence, that this made no difference at all. 
When he met the other apostles he exclaims, “ They, 
I say, who were of repute imparted nothing to me ” 
(Gal. ii. 6). Their knowledge of Christ “ after the 
flesh ” was no advantage to them. In the text St. 
Paul goes even so far as to say that if he had known 
Christ “ after the flesh ” he would now rid himself of 
that knowledge. It was a danger ; it was a tempta- 
tion ; the seen and the temporal in Christ were apt 
to obscure the unseen and eternal. Those who 
did know Christ “ after the flesh ” either never 
realised His true character or were many long years 
in coming to a knowledge of it. In order to guard 
against all misconception on this point, St. Paul went 
to an extreme and emphasised in every way his 
ignorance of Christ “after the flesh.” Have you 
ever realised the startling fact that St. Paul never 
refers to the lovely human life of Christ as recorded 
in the four Gospels ? He mentions only two events 
in that record — the death of Christ, and the resurrec- 
tion of Christ — and these he names as great spiritual 
facts without any of the human details and circum- 
stances over which biographers would tenderly linger. 
What is the meaning of St. Paul’s astonishing silence 
with respect to numerous known incidents of the life 
of our Lord, which are the ever-increasing delight of 


THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO ST. PAUL. 21 

every reader of the New Testament ? His silence 
means that the essence of the Gospel lies far below 
the mere details, incomparable as they are, of our 
Saviour’s life. 

You and I are like St. Paul ; we never knew Christ 
“ after the flesh ” ; we never touched His warm hand, 
we never saw His august but gentle face, we never 
listened to His audible voice. But we may have an 
immeasurably better knowledge of Him than His con- 
temporaries received through their senses. We may 
know Him as St. Paul knew Him. How did St. 
Paul know him ? Listen to his own profound and 
pregnant words : “ It was the good pleasure of God 
. ... to reveal His Son in me” (Gal. i. 15-16)* 
There are two totally different ways of contemplating 
Christ. We may think of Him as One who lived 
three-and-thirty years, nineteen centuries ago ; we 
may dwell upon all the known incidents of His 
lovely life as we might dwell upon Plato’s incompar- 
able account of the trial and death of Socrates. Such 
a contemplation of the life of our Lord is beautiful, 
inspiring, ennobling; but it is outside of us; it is far 
away from us ; nineteen long centuries with all their 
endless changes and revolutions intervene between it 
and us ; it does not stir the depths of our being. There 
is another way, a totally different way, in which we 
may think of Christ. We may think of Him as the 
Living Christ, the Eisen Christ, the Christ in whom 
all things “ live, and move, and have their being ” ; the 
Christ who is in us as He is in every man, a 


22 


ESSENTIAL CHRISTIANITY. 


personal force in actual direct contact with our own 
life. This view of Christ is what St. Paul calls “ my 
Gospel.” This is the “ mystery ” which God revealed 
pre-eminently to St. Paul, and through St. Paul to us. 
This is the key to the enigma of the universe, to the 
mystery of sin, pain, and death — “ Christ in us, the 
hope of glory.” 

Let me show you how this view of Christ revolu- 
tionises everything, how this method of realising 
Christ does what nothing else can do. Quite recently 
a lady in the West End sought an interview w T ith one 
of our Sisters. She was gifted, privileged, restless, 
eager, longing for rest and for a noble career. She 
had lofty ethical ideas, and she yearned to realise 
them. She wished to lead a true, a beautiful, a good 
life, and to devote herself to mankind. “ But,” she 
said imperiously,' 4 do not talk to me about Christianity. 
The word is meaningless in my ears. Do not talk to 
me about Christians. They are inconsistent. They 
profess one thing and do another.” “ I will talk to 
you,” replied the wise Sister, “ neither about Christ- 
ianity, nor about Christians ; but I must talk to you 
about Christ. You yourself are inexplicable without 
Christ. I cannot separate you from Christ ; I cannot 
think of you apart from Christ ; I cannot explain you 
without taking Christ into the account. Christ who 
lived two thousand years ago lives to-day, lives in 
London, lives in this room, lives in your heart, and it 
is because Christ lives in the depths of your being 
that you have come to me to-day. It is Christ who, 


THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO ST. PAUL. 


23 


by His personal influence over your spirit, makes you 
utterly dissatisfied with a selfish *or a frivolous life. 
It is Christ who has given you a hunger after 
righteousness, and an intense yearning to serve your 
fellow-mortals.” All at once the great truth began 
to dawn upon that eager and gifted woman’s 
mind. She began to realise that the Christ who had 
seemed to her so far off, a mere name in history, was 
a Living Person, surrounding her path, permeating 
her nature, originating all that was beet in her, and 
making her conscious of the deep spiritual need which 
He Himself alone could satisfy. So this woman came 
to know Christ not “ after the flesh,” but as St. Paul 
knew Him. It was “ the good pleasure of God ” to 
reveal Christ “ in ” her ; to her, as to St. Paul, that 
divine mystery, so disclosed, became “ the hope of 
glory ” ; and her sombre life was lit up with the radiance 
of immortal joy. 

This is equally true of every one of you. Let me 
illustrate it by one of the well-known and most 
remarkable facts of modern science. Many years 
ago astronomers noticed that the movements of 
Uranus, then the most distant planet within their 
ken, were eccentric and apparently unaccountable. 
Uranus did not move in his appointed orbit as he 
ought to move. A great Englishman, the late 
Astronomer Royal, and an eminent Frenchman dis- 
covered simultaneously that the irregular movements 
of Uranus must be due to the attractive influence of 
some great world not yet known to astronomy ; and 


24 


ESSENTIAL CHRISTIANITY. 


those who were watching the heavens were urged to 
direct their telescopes towards a particular part of 
the sky where the disturbing element must be found, 
and where in due time Neptune was detected. In the 
same way your restlessness, your thirst for true 
goodness, your moral eccentricities and agitations are 
not self-originated. They are due to some mighty 
attractive influence. It is the influence of Jesus 
Christ, an influence which penetrates into the depths 
of your soul, agitates you, and draws you to Himself. 
It is as useless for you to try and explain yourself 
and your conduct apart from Christ, as it would have 
been to explain the strange movements of Uranus 
apart from Neptune. Zenophon in a memorable 
passage said that it seemed to him as though he had 
two souls. He was right. Christ was his other soul. 
Christ was his better self. An old soldier of the 
French Guard who had received a wound in the chest 
cried to the surgeon, “ Cut deep enough and you will 
find the Emperor.” And we may say of every man, 
“Cut deep enough into his very heart, and there, 
behind and beneath everything else, in the complex 
mystery of his being, you will find Christ.” 

But how shall we explain the absolute Agnostic 
whom I met as recently as yesterday, who declared 
that he was utterly indifferent, that his soul was 
never agitated by the least tremor of desire for 
religion, that he was absolutely “ dead ” to it ? Ah ! 
it was the apparent deadness of winter, not a leaf, 
not a bud, not a blade of grass. But wait, wait for 


THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO ST. PAUL. 


25 


the warm sunshine, and the gentle rain of your 
Heavenly Father. Buds and blossoms of hope shall 
then at last appear. “ He is not dead, but sleepeth.” 
This is what St. Paul meant, in the first part of the 
text, where he declares, “We henceforth know no 
man after the flesh.” That is to say he could not 
now think of any man apart from the Divine Christ, 
who is in every man, leading every man to Himself. 
No soul is in the absolute blackness of darkness, 
altogether un visited by that Light of the World, that 
True Light “which lighteth every man” (St. John i. 9). 

Such was the Gospel which logically and neces- 
sarily made St. Paul the great missionary apostle. In 
every land within his reach he eagerly preached Christ 
to all men, for Christ is the Saviour of all men, visits 
all men, and draws all men to Himself. Are you 
restless, dissatisfied, miserable, full of doubt ? Your 
very wretchedness is created by Christ, in order that 
you may realise that without Him, that is to say 
without accepting Him, you are undone for ever. He, 
and He alone, can satisfy every need of your mind 
and of your spirit. You acknowledge that He could 
solve your doubts and cleanse your heart ? But He 
seems to you afar off. You think that He has not yet 
come to you, that you have much to do before He can 
come to you. Like the unhappy woman of Samaria 
you say, “ I know that Messiah cometh . . when 

He is come He will declare unto us all things” 
(St. John iv. 23). To you as to her, when such words 
are uttered or thought, the Voice of Christ answers 


26 


ESSENTIAL CHRISTIANITY. 


at once, “ I that speak unto thee am he/' Christ 
has already come to you. Christ is nearer to you at 
this moment than any other person. He is in your 
heart. Submit to Him, welcome Him, and at once, 
without difficulty and without delay, “all things are 
yours ; whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, or the 
world, or life, or death, or things present, or things 
to come; all are yours; and ye are Christ’s; and 
Christ is God’s ” (1 Cor. iii. 22, 23). 


THE BROTHERHOOD OF MANKIND. 


** We are members one of another.” 


•Ephesians iv. 25. 


j 


THE BEOTHEEHOOD OF MANKIND. 


I HA YE already explained the great characteristic 
Pauline gospel of Christ “ not after the flesh ” ; 
but there is a corollary to that. St. Paul refused to 
know Christ “after the flesh/’ lest that kind of 
knowledge should obscure his spiritual, inward 
knowledge of Christ, which is the essence of living 
Christianity. He was equally determined to “ know 
no man after the flesh,” that is to say, to know no 
man apart from Christ. Christ is in every man, 
trying to save every man. Therefore it follows that 
'Christ is the living bond of union between every 
man and every other man. 

It is only very slowly that even we Christians are 
coming to realise the relation of Christ to the race. 
St. Paul announced long ago on Mars’ Hill, in 
Athens, that we were all “ of one blood.” It was the 
most suitable spot under heaven to announce this 
characteristic doctrine of Christianity. Athens was 
the centre of Greek civilisation, and while the 
Greeks claimed to be themselves descended from the 


30 


ESSENTIAL CHRISTIANITY. 


gods, they regarded all other races as “ barbarians,” 
and hopeless inferiors. It is amazing how even 
educated men are misled by words. How often 
scholars have eulogised the “republic” of Athens. 
Kepublic, indeed ! when three-fourths of the citizens 
were slaves, the goods and chattels of the remaining 
fourth whose great philosopher, Aristotle, declared 
that the slavery of the majority of mankind was an 
absolute necessity, in order that the privileged and 
aristocratic minority might have time and leisure to 
write beautifully, and to speak eloquently in favour 
of freedom ! No wonder that the proud and exclu- 
sive Greeks were indignant with the democratic 
teaching of St. Paul. As Professor Max Muller has 
pointed out, the idea of our “ common humanity ” is 
so purely and entirely a Christian conception that 
there was no word to express it in any human 
language until Christ came. It was so absolutely 
new that new words had to be invented to describe 
it. To-day it is universally received. The unity of 
the human race is a Christian doctrine which is 
confirmed by modern science. There are, of course, 
a few eccentric individuals even in the scientific 
world who deny it, but the whole tendency of 
modern investigation is against them. 

This doctrine of the unity of the race has already 
achieved the greatest revolution known to history. 
It has given a death-blow to Slavery which has 
existed from the dawn of human history, and was 
as deeply rooted and as widespread as drunkenness 


THE BROTHERHOOD OF MANKIND. 


31 


or lust, or war. What struck the shackles from the 
slaves ? The assertion of the Christian doctrine that 
even a negro is “a man and a brother.” Political 
economists have subsequently discovered that free 
labour pays better than the labour of a slave. But 
the emancipators were Christian men, influenced not 
by economic, but by philanthropic considerations. 
When the illustrious Kossuth came to this country 
to plead on behalf of his native land he happily 
anglicised a word which already existed in some 
continental languages — the “ solidarity ” of mankind. 
On that foundation he logically argued that England 
was necessarily interested in the welfare of Hungary. 
Anything like selfish isolation is impossible. We 
are bound to the rest of the human race in the 
compact bundle of life. We rise and fall with our 
brother man everywhere. At the same time let 
me add that the acknowledgment of this indis- 
putable fact does not justify irrational and sangui- 
nary meddling with the affairs of other nations. 
Richard Cobden taught^ the rational and humane 
doctrine of “ non-intervention,” but he never taught 
that we should try to isolate ourselves in insular 
selfishness, and refuse to use our legitimate influence 
in gracious ways to help our brother man every- 
where. The Christian doctrine, that “ we are 
members one of another,” has to so great an extent 
leavened modern English society that nothing is 
more popular than an appeal to “our common 
humanity.” Men, in their better moments, love to 


32 


ESSENTIAL CHRISTIANITY. 


acknowledge the bond of unity which underlies all 
differences of language, race, and creed. At such 
times they despise and resent superficial distinc- 
tions and differences. But there is a yet deeper 
bond of union than our common humanity in the 
ordinary sense. Tennyson in his latest work has 
revived the memory of the wonderful dream of 
Akbar, the noble Mogul Emperor, who dreamed 

“That stone by stone I rear’d a sacred fane, 

A temple, neither Pagod, Mosque, nor Church, 

But loftier, simpler, always open-door’d 

To every breath from heaven, and Truth and Peace 

And Love and Justice came and dwelt therein.” 

In that glorious dream Akbar had a glimpse of 
some deep spiritual unity underlying all our theo- 
logical and ecclesiastical differences. 

The promoters of the Parliament of Religions 
which has just been sitting in Chicago were moved 
by a similar impulse, however feebly or dimly realised. 
There can be no doubt that while there is a bond of 
union in our common humanity, there is a yet deeper 
and more permanent bond in Jesus Christ. We are all 
related to “ the first Adam,” therefore we are related 
to one another. But we are all related to Him who is 
so significantly called by St. Paul “ the last Adam,” 
(1 Cor. xv. 45), and in Him the bond is both more 
recent and more ancient, both deeper and more endur- 
ing. The Positivists, a small but influential group of 
modern thinkers, have had glimpses of this glorious 
truth. They realise that humanity is “ an organism,” 


THE BROTHERHOOD OF MANKIND. 33 

and no one can have pondered their ethical and social 
teaching without realising what lofty, magnificent, 
and humane conceptions have sprung from their 
grasp of this great fundamental truth. It has eman- 
cipated them from the selfish individualism and 
parochialism which have so often disfigured conven- 
tional Christian thinkers. But while the Positivists 
have grasped an aspect of Christian truth, and have 
realised that humanity is an organism, they have 
failed to realise that the organism of which they 
speak is fatally defective. It is a “ body ” without a 
“head.” Their truth never becomes effective until 
we realise that of this living organism Christ is the 
head, and that we all are the living members. 

The way in which the realisation of this great 
truth affects conduct is strikingly exhibited in the 
ethical teaching of St. Paul. In the twelfth chapter 
of his letter to the Romans he says, “ Even as we have 
many members in one body, and all the members 
have not the same office : so we, who are many, are 
one body in Christ, and severally members one of 
another” (ver. 4, 5). Then he goes on in ever- 
memorable language to teach the most splendid and 
sublime rules of human conduct that the world has 
ever known. He himself was a startling and 
amazing illustration of the revolutionary effect of 
this truth when once realised. By nature a Jew 
of the Jews, a Pharisee of the Pharisees, he inherited 
and exhibited the ecclesiastical and racial exclusive- 
ness which led the Jews to hate all other men, and 


D 


34 


ESSENTIAL CHRISTIANITY. 


all other men, naturally enough, to reciprocate that 
hatred vigorously. But under the influence of this 
great truth he went everywhere, asserting that 
“ the middle wall of partition ” between Jew and 
Gentile was broken down for ever. There is no 
such middle wall of partition anywhere now. The 
antipathy which exists between France and Ger- 
many, and which is to-day the main cause of 
European misery, is of trifling and fleeting impor- 
tance in comparison with that middle wall of par- 
tition which from time immemorial separated the 
Jews from the rest of the human race, and the rest 
of the human race from the Jews. So completely, 
however, was this removed in the case of St. Paul 
that he actually said, “ I am debtor both to Greeks 
and to Barbarians ” (Rom. i 14). He positively 
realised that he was under a paramount personal 
obligation to do his utmost for the welfare of 
every civilised and every uncivilised man whom 
he could reach. He asserted it to be as much his 
duty to spend his time, his energy, and all his gifts 
in the service of all men, as we acknowledge it to be 
our duty to pay twenty shillings in the pound. In 
all this, I need scarcely add, he had “ the mind of 
Christ,” who was, as He delighted to call Himself, 
“ the Son of Man.” Christ regarded humanity with 
filial affection and reverence. He was the most 
cosmopolitan Man that ever lived. Of Jewish birth 
He was entirely free from Jewish narrowness and 
intolerance. He was the Brother of every man. This 


THE BROTHERHOOD OF MANKIND. 


35 


is so absolutely the case that the African, the Hin- 
du, and the Chinaman have no more difficulty in 
realising that Christ is their Brother than the English- 
man, the Frenchman, or the Italian. On a most 
solemn and memorable occasion He declared that 
His love for the miserable, the criminal, the outcast, 
the obscure, and the disinherited, was so intense that 
He regarded any service rendered to any one of them 
as a personal service rendered to Himself. “ Inas- 
much as ye did it unto one of these my brethren, 
even these least, ye did it unto me” (St. Matt, 
xxv. 40). 

In a word, Jesus Christ identifies Himself abso- 
lutely with every man. So must every true 
Christian. So does every Christlike Christian. Ho 
one of our own time has won the hearts of rich and 
poor, and especially of the poor, to a greater extent 
than the late Catherine Booth. What gave that 
remarkable and devout woman such an astonishing 
influence over the most degraded and criminal and 
embittered classes in the land f The secret of her 
remarkable career is found in a lovely incident 
which occurred in her childhood. One day when 
she was a little girl, playing with her hoop, she 
saw a ragged, filthy drunkard in the grasp of 
a policeman who had arrested him, followed by a 
jeering and hooting crowd. In a moment she took 
her hoop in her hand and hurried to the drunkard’s 
side. While the policeman grasped him and forced 
him along, she kept by the other side of the poor 


36 


ESSENTIAL CHRISTIANITY. 


wretch, so that amid all the heartless insults of 
that crowd he might realise that there was at least 
one person in the world who sympathised with him 
and pitied him. As the boy is the father of the man 
so is the girl the mother of the woman, and in this 
striking incident any one who had profound discern- 
ment of human character could have forecast the 
future career of Catherine Booth. All class or caste 
arrogance is absolutely anti-Christian. All race- 
hatred is simply diabolical. What the French call 
“ Chauvinisme ” — a perverted caricature of patriotism 
which seeks national strength by enfeebling and 
crippling surrounding nations — is idiotic, suicidal 
and devilish. Any man who says that any other 
nation is the natural or necessary enemy of our own 
is a disciple of Antichrist. As all men are our 
brothers in Christ, all other nations are so truly 
united to us that we cannot have any really 
antagonistic interests. Everything that promotes 
their prosperity promotes our own, everything that 
injures them injures us. 

Precisely the same principles must be applied to 
business. Indeed, St. Paul proceeds in the passage 
which immediately follows the text to apply the 
great truth which the text expresses both to our 
social relations, and to our business conduct. It is 
one of the fundamental ethical axioms of Christi- 
anity that all business which takes advantage of the 
ignorance or weakness of our fellow-men is anti- 
Christian. Every man who tries to make money out 


THE BROTHERHOOD OF MANKIND. 


37 


of the folly, or misery, or wickedness of his fellow- 
creatures is an enemy of Jesus Christ. There is no 
legitimate commercial transaction which is not a 
mutual advantage, and the transaction is not perfect 
unless the advantage is equal. That is the final test 
of the lawfulness or unlawfulness of any business or 
trade. Every man is my brother, because Christ is 
in every man as Christ is in me. Every man is con- 
sequently a part of my better self, and I am bound 
by the most sacred obligations to care for his 
interests precisely as I care for my own. The same 
principle, as I have already intimated, must be 
applied to all international relations. When men 
realise that they are all “ members one of another,” 
War will become morally impossible. There have 
been moments when men have realised this. At a 
critical hour in the French Eevolution the soldiers 
of France suddenly grounded their arms, and refused 
to obey the word of command which instructed them 
to shoot down the starving peasants and workmen. 
They said, “ They are our brothers ” ; and when men 
realise that all other men are their brothers they will 
refuse to shoot them, and the long reign of diabolical 
war will be at an end for ever. At the bottom of all 
sins and crimes will be found a practical forgetful- 
ness of the Brotherhood of men. The day must 
come at last when men will realise that all un- 
brotherliness is suicidal. We are bound together so 
tightly in the compact bundle of life that whatever 
really benefits one benefits all, and whatever really 


38 


ESSENTIAL CHRISTIANITY. 


injures one injures all. In vain do we try to forget 
any of our brother-men, and to wrap ourselves in 
fancied seclusion and security. It has recently come 
to light, for example, that many royal and aristocratic 
dresses and uniforms are made in fever-dens. The 
privileged classes during their long tenure of 
supreme power have allowed slums to come into 
existence, and now from these very slums creep 
forth infectious diseases which decimate the families 
of the privileged and the wealthy. 

Those who appear to live at the opposite poles of 
society are constantly influenced by one another for 
good or for evil. The happiness of the rich is at the 
mercy of the poor, and the happiness of the poor is 
at the mercy of the rich. All the artificial barriers 
which men selfishly try to erect between man and 
man are a delusion. If one does wrong all suffer. 
Everyone is therefore directly, and even selfishly 
interested in the true welfare of everyone else. Mr. 
Herbert Spencer has discovered this truth, as the 
result of a lifetime of dispassionate and patient 
research. He announces in the “Data of Ethics” that 
the practical outcome of all his studies is the funda- 
mental ethical law that no man can achieve his own 
personal happiness except by promoting the happiness 
of all others. Humanity is a living organism, and 
every influence passes through the whole of it. I 
have said that if one does wrong we all suffer. 
But let us equally remember that if one does nobly 
we are all benefited by it. Only in our own day are 


THE BROTHERHOOD OF MANKIND. 


39 


we beginning to realise to what an extent the conduct 
of others influences our own, and can encourage and 
facilitate all that is best in us. This is the new 
note of the best poetry of our time. This is the 
deeply religious side of the Socialism which is slowly 
revolutionising European society. It found its first 
and most splendid expression in one of the greatest 
passages in Browning’s “ Paracelsus ” — one of the very 
greatest passages in the literature of mankind : — 


“ Progress is 

The law of life, man is not Man as yet. 

Nor shall I deem his object served, his end 
Attained, his genuine strength put fairly forth, 

"While only here and there a star dispels 
The darkness, here and there a towering mind 
O’erlooks its prostrate fellows : when the host 
Is out at once to the despair of night, 

When all mankind alike is perfected, 

Equal in full-blown powers — then, not till then, 

I say, begins man’s general infancy. 

For wherefore make account of feverish starts 
Of restless members of a dormant whole, 

Impatient nerves which quiver while the body 

Slumbers as in a grave ? Oh, long ago 

The brow was twitched, the tremulous lids astir, 

The peaceful mouth disturbed ; half-uttered speech 
Ruffled the lip, and then the teeth were set, 

The breath drawn sharp, the strong right hand clenched stronger, 
As it would pluck a lion by the jaw; 

The glorious creature laughed out even in sleep I 
But when full-roused, each giant-limb awake, 

Each sinew strung, the great heart pulsing fast, 

He shall start up and stand on his own earth, 

Then shall his long triumphant march begin, 

Thence shall his being date, — thus wholly roused, 

What he achieves shall be set down to him. 

When all the race is perfected alike 
As man, that is ; all tended to mankind, 


40 


ESSENTIAL CHRISTIANITY. 


And, man produced, all has its end thus far : 

But in completed man begins anew 
A tendency to God. Prognostics told 
Man’s near approach ; so in man’s self arise 
August anticipations, symbols, types 
Of a dim splendour ever on before 
In that eternal circle life pursues. 

For men begin to pass their nature’s hound, 

And find new hopes and cares which fast supplant 
Their proper joys and griefs ; they grow too great 
For narrow creeds of right and wrong, which fade 
Before the unmeasured thirst for good : while peace 
Rises within them ever more and more. 

Such men are even now upon the earth, 

Serene amid the half-formed creatures round 

Who should be saved by them and joined with them.” 

Tennyson, especially at the close of his life, had 
glimpses of the same high, great truth. In his last 
volume he gave expression to it : — 

“ Man as yet is being made, and ere the crowning Age of ages, 
Shall not aeon after seon pass and touch him into shape ? 

All about him shadow still, but, while the races flower and fade, 
Prophet- eyes may catch a glory slowly gaining on the shade, 

Till the peoples all are one, and all their voices blend in choric 
Hallelujah to the Maker * It is finish’d. Man is made.’ ” 

When at Oxford I attended the ethical lectures 
of the late Professor Green at Balliol, and the 
very last he delivered were intended to show that 
we cannot attain our own highest ethical level except 
in an ethicised society ; that the individual cannot 
realise his ideal until the social environment has be- 
come in the highest sense favourable to that ideal. 
Of course, he did not deny, what happily every race 
and every age have proved, that, amid all the sin and 
folly which still ? hound on every side, noble indi- 


THE BKOTHERHOOD OF MANKIND. 


41 


victuals may reach a high standard of goodness. But 
the highest, the richest, and the noblest life cannot be 
lived on earth until Society is saved as well as the 
Individual; and the salvation of Society depends, 
under God, upon the realisation of the great truth 
which occupies us now. There is no ultimate antago- 
nism between the interests of the Individual and of 
Society. Legitimate and healthy self-love is in per- 
fect harmony with altruism. Beal patriotism is in 
complete accord with divine cosmopolitanism. He 
loves his country best and most wisely, who realises 
that no nation can live to itself, but that every 
nation, like every individual, is to find its own well- 
being in the kindly promotion of the well-being of 
every other nation. 

In conclusion, there are two fatal delusions to 
which our natural selfishness exposes us. The first 
is to think of ourselves apart from Christ. The 
second is to think of ourselves apart from mankind. 
Let us realise our relation to Christ and to all men. 
Then, and then only, shall we lead lives worthy of 
our divine origin and our divine redemption. Every 
man is capable of becoming a “Satan” — a selfish, 
uncharitable, suspicious person, thinking of himself 
apart from others, and imputing selfish motives to 
others, until the indignant Voice of God exclaims, 
“ Get thee behind me, Satan : for thou mindest not 
the things of God ” (St. Matt. xvi. 23). Terrible 
words, addressed as we know to one of the apostles. 
But man is equally capable of becoming a “ Christ,” 


42 


ESSENTIAL CHRISTIANITY. 


a true follower of Him who came into this world 
“ not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to 
give His life a ransom for many ” (St. Matt. xx. 28). 
Shall we accept the Pauline, the Christion concep- 
tion of life, or the Satanic conception of life ? Shall 
we live for self, or shall we live for others — for 
all ? When we live for self we lose what we hope 
to retain; when we live for others we gain every- 
thing. Happy is the man who understands the 
characteristic and oft-repeated paradox of Christ, 
“ He that findeth his life shall lose it ; and he that 
loseth his life for my sake shall find it ” (St. Matt 
x. 39). 


THE FINAL EEYELATION. 


“ And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we 
beheld His glory.” — St. John i. 14 . 


i 


THE FINAL EEYELATION. 


T HE distinctive mission of St. Paul was to destroy 
the notion that those who had known Jesus 
Christ “ after the flesh ” enjoyed any vital advantage 
over those who had never so known Him. St. Paul 
himself had not known Christ “ after the flesh,” and 
yet he was “ not a whit behind the very chiefest 
apostles ” (2 Cor. xi. 5). The essential need of every 
man is not to know Christ “ after the flesh,” but to 
know Him spiritually as He reveals Himself in 
every man’s heart. The Gospel proclaimed by St. 
Paul was expressed in the ever-memorable words, 
“ It was the good pleasure of God to reveal His Son 
in me” (Gal. i. 15). In the depths of his own 
soul St. Paul discovered the risen, living, divine 
Saviour, prompting him to all that is good and 
laying the foundation of eternal life. 

St. Paul taught this great truth so mightily that 
his theological victory in the Gentile Churches was 
in danger of becoming too complete. From the 
narrow Jewish extreme his Gentile converts swung 


46 


ESSENTIAL CHRISTIANITY. 


round to the opposite extreme. St. Paul’s disciples 
saw that he never referred to any incidents in the 
Gospel history except the supreme facts of the 
Crucifixion and the Eesurrection. With the one- 
sided tendency of mere disciples some of them began 
to disparage the historical Christ as distinguished 
from the spiritual Christ. They even went so far as 
to deny that Christ had ever come in the flesh at all. 
They asserted that He had not really partaken of 
flesh and blood, that His physical existence was a 
mere illusion. It is always thus. The emphatic 
statement of one truth leads to the neglect, the 
disparagement, or the denial of its complementary 
truth. 

St. John, in his old age, was inspired to correct the 
abuse and perversion of St. Paul’s “ Gospel ” by re- 
asserting in the strongest terms that the spiritual 
Christ of St. Paul was absolutely the same Person as 
the historical Christ of St. Matthew, St. Mark, and 
St. Luke. It was safe to emphasise that truth then, 
for the old Jewish party had been utterly defeated. 
The danger was now in the opposite direction. The 
mystical, transcendental Christ of St. Paul was in 
danger of being placed altogether beyond the reach of 
ordinary warm-blooded mortals. It is the perpetual 
danger of man to run to extremes. To this very day 
the Pauline conception so completely dominates both 
the great divisions of Christendom that the Catholics 
have developed Mariolatry and the Protestants have 
developed Unitarianisim Men must have human 


THE FINAL KEVELATION. 


47 


sympathy, and the Catholic seeks that in the human 
mother of our Lord. On the other hand some 
Protestants have sought it by endeavouring to explain 
away the Divinity of Christ. The Catholic has been 
so preoccupied with the divine nature of Christ as to 
forget His human nature, and the Protestant has 
sometimes been so preoccupied with the human 
nature of Christ, as to forget His divine nature. But 
the Christian of the school of St. John finds in Jesus 
Christ, the Son of God, all the human warmth and 
tenderness which the Catholic seeks in Mary, and 
which the Unitarian seeks in the human Jesus. 

In a word, St. John crowns the arch of revelation 
by presenting and emphasising the humanity as well 
as the divinity of Christ. St. Paul is right. Christ is 
“ the Eternal Word,” “ the only begotten Son of God,” 
present in every heart. But St. Peter and St. James 
are also right. That Eternal Word “ became flesh ” 
and “ we beheld His glory ” in a human face. One of 
the greatest, most orthodox, and most devout of living 
Evangelical theologians, whose name is honoured in 
every Church and in every land, said to me in private 
conversation some months ago, “ If it had not been for 
the prologue to St. John’s Gospel I should have been 
an Atheist.” It was a startling evidence of the 
necessity for that completed revelation of the divine 
and human Saviour which we find so sublimely and 
so graciously expressed in the Gospel according to 
St. John. 

The time has once more come for St. John to 


48 


ESSENTIAL CHRISTIANITY. 


complete the conception of the disciples of St. Paul. 
Why are all the best theologians, commentators, 
expositors, and preachers turning to St. John ? 
Because the great Evangelical movement of the 
eighteenth century was too exclusively Pauline. 
Wesley revived in all lands the Pauline conception 
of the Risen Christ, the Indwelling Christ, the 
Christ who forgives our sins, and changes our 
hearts. But Wesley never expressly preached the 
tender humanity of St. John. His Gospel was, like 
St. Paul’s, largely abstract. He never dwelt at 
length on the details of the human life of Christ. 
He never set forth Christ as our concrete and 
constant Example. He never preached definitely 
and fully the imitation of Christ. All this was, of 
course, involved in his teaching ; but it was never 
explicitly taught by him as it is taught to-day in a 
thousand pulpits. 

There was an obvious providential reason for 
this. St. Paul must come first, then St. John. St. 
Paul has come to modern Europe, and now St. John 
is coming. Lives of Christ are the most widely 
circulated volumes of the day. Infidels and Chris- 
tians alike are turning with ever-increasing curiosity, 
interest, and intensity to the life of Christ. Renan 
and Strauss, as well as Farrar and Geikie, write 
biographies of our Lord. As Principal Fair bairn 
has pointed out, there has been a complete revolu- 
tion in the construction of ministers’ libraries 
during the last fifty years. In the days of our 


THE FINAL REVELATION. 49 

grandfathers their book-shelves were crowded with 
treatises on abstract theology. To-day these trea- 
tises have almost disappeared, and in their place 
we find commentaries on the New Testament, and 
biographies of Christ. St. Paul explains to us the 
meaning of the death and resurrection of our Lord. 
But we are never quite happy until we have supple- 
mented that with the knowledge of His Life. The 
Incarnation is a theme of ever-increasing attraction, 
because the Incarnation, as the text declares, is the 
revelation of “ the glory of God.” It is the final 
and crowning revelation. 

All human history, from the divine standpoint, 
is a record of the revelation which God has been 
incessantly making of Himself. The blinding light 
of the Eternal has been tempered to the tender eye of 
man, and the light has grown brighter as the eye of 
man has become stronger to bear it. It burst forth 
in all its meridian splendour from the human face 
of Christ. But, as St. Paul says, God never “ left 
Himself without witness, in that He did good, and 
gave ” us “ from heaven, rain, and fruitful seasons 
filling ” our “ hearts with food and gladness ” (Acts 
xiv. 17). The same apostle says, "The invisible 
things of God are clearly seen, being perceived 
through the things that are made ” (Rom. i. 20). 
The universe, man, history, all things are used by 
God as channels through which He makes Himself 
known to us. But the light has often been very 
dim, although, as St. John reminds us, it has never 


50 


ESSENTIAL CHRISTIANITY. 


been quite “ overcome ” (St. John i. 5) by the dark- 
ness. The great object of this many-sided revelation 
from heaven has been to make known to us “the 
glory of God.” If a friend visits you, you like to 
show him your most valued possessions. If you are 
a gardener you take him to see the loveliest flower 
in your conservatory. If you are an artist you lead 
him to your studio and show him your best picture. 
If you are an author you place your favourite 
volume in his hand. Now God wishes man to know 
what He “glories” in, what He deems His best 
possession, what affords Him more joy than anything 
else. He wishes to give us “ the knowledge of His 
glory.” What does He glory in ? What does He 
wish us to know above everything else ? 

Does He wish us to know His Power ? Certainly 
not. That might impress some. But He placed our 
first parents in the Garden of Eden. Great loveli- 
ness was there, but no special manifestation of power. 
I notice that when kings and other potentates visit 
one another they are taken to see the arsenal, or the 
army, or the fleet. The host is very anxious to give 
the guests a great idea of his power. This is one of 
the many particulars in which the King of Kings is 
essentially different from all other kings. He put 
our first parents in the Garden of Eden where there 
was no great display of power. He might have 
placed them on some solitary island, around which 
great oceans leaped and rolled. But He has never 
gone out of His way to impress men with His power. 


TIIK FINAL REVELATION. 


51 


Neither has He ever sought to overwhelm them 
with His Wisdom. It is only lately that He has be- 
gun to unfold to us, on a large scale, the marvels of 
His Knowledge. The physical sciences are exceed- 
ingly modern. It is only in our own lifetime that 
God has permitted us, by the use of such modern in- 
ventions as the microscope, the telescope, and the 
spectroscope, to find out the wonders of His skill. 
He was in no hurry to impress us with that. No- 
thing can be more absurd, or wicked, or degraded, than 
the idolatrous worship of mere cleverness. We may 
be as clever or as powerful as Satan himself, and yet 
as odious and degraded. God does not glory either 
in Power or in Wisdom. 

But let me tell you what God does glory in ; what 
He has been trying to reveal to us from the very 
beginning ; what He wishes us to know more than 
anything else. He wishes us to know that His very 
nature is Love ! He wishes to persuade us that He 
attaches an immeasurably higher value to love than 
to power or to wisdom. Where shall we find words 
to describe the rapture of man when he discovers 
that “God is love”? One of the most delightful 
passages in human biography is in the life of Henry 
Ward Beecher. He was brought up in a narrow 
hard, Calvinistic school. For a long time he groped 
in darkness and misery. The name of God was to 
him a name of terror. But with glowing eloquence 
and delight he tells us how on one memorable 
day it dawned upon him that God was love. At 


52 


ESSENTIAL CHRISTIANITY. 


once the whole universe was radiant with new 
beauty. Everything was changed. He was changed. 
He passed from hell to heaven, and the light of 
that rapturous moment never passed away.* But 
neither to him nor to us could that vivid and full 
knowledge of the love of God have ever come except 
in the face of Jesus Christ. All previous revelations 
are summed up, supplemented, and completed in the 
face of Jesus Christ. “ He that hath seen me hath 
seen the Father” (St. John xviv. 1). There is “life 
for a look ” at that face. 

Whatever conception we may have formed of 
God must be corrected and supplemented by the 
revelation of tenderness and pity which has come to 
all men in the face of Jesus Christ. It was a happy 
hour for England, and for the world, when a young 
man in the Eastern Counties, named Charles Haddon 
Spurgeon, first saw the truth that “ God is love.” 
He often told the story of that ecstatic moment. He 
had wandered from one sanctuary to another, and 
had found no rest in any. At last he went into a 

* “ It then pleased God to lift upon me such a view of Christ 
as one whose nature and office is to have infinite and exquisite 
pity upon the weakness and want of sinners as I had never had 
before. I saw that He had compassion upon them because they 
were sinners, and because he wanted to help them out of their 
sins. It came to me like the bursting forth of spring. It was 
as if yesterday there was not a bird to be seen or heard, and as 
if to-day the woods were full of singing birds. There rose up 
before me a view of Jesus as the Saviour of sinners — not of saints, 
but of sinners unconverted, before they were any better — because 
they were so bad and needed so much ; and that view has never 
gone from me .” — ( Biography of Rev. H. W. Beecher, page 155.) 


THE FINAL REVELATION. 


53 


little Primitive Methodist chapel. The preacher 
was giving out the text, “ Look unto me, and be ye 
saved, all the ends of the earth ” ; and young Spur- 
geon, who was walking down the aisle, says, “ I 
looked and was saved.” At once his sins were for- 
given, and the experience of that glad hour has been 
reproduced in the happy lives of unnumbered thou- 
sands in many lands. All fears and all sorrows are 
borne down at a glance w T hen we lift our eyes and 
discover Jesus of Nazareth. I, too, saw that face 
when I was a little boy. That is why I preach the 
Gospel to-day. Truly there is “life for a look at 
the Crucified One.” The glory of God is revealed in 
all its unclouded and absolute reality in the face of 
Jesus Christ. 

We look into that face, what do we see ? Omni- 
potence ? No. That divine attribute slumbers. 
We see weakness, hunger, thirst, pain, and many 
tears. Do we see omniscience ? No. In the 
unfathomable mystery of the Incarnation that divine 
attribute also slumbers. Jesus Christ “ advanced in 
wisdom ” (St. Luke ii. 52), and declared Himself 
ignorant of the Great Day (St. Mark xiii. 32). In 
the exercise of His divine and incalculable resources 
He laid aside both His omnipotence and His omnis- 
cience. What then do we see in the face of Jesus 
Christ ? Love, and Love only. He could neither 
lay aside nor conceal that because it is the very 
essence of the Godhead. It is not an attribute like 
omnipotence or omniscience. It is His veritable 


54 


ESSENTIAL CHRISTIANITY. 


self. Poets utter the profoundest truths of theology, 
sometimes half unconsciously. No words in English 
literature are more profound or more glorious than 
the simple line which, describing the voluntary 
humiliation of Christ, declares that He 

“ Emptied Himself of all but love.” 

Perhaps the author of that line scarcely realised all 
that it expresses. Christ could not empty Himself 
of love, because love, as we now know, was His 
essential self. St. John is the final exponent of the 
eternal significance of the Incarnation. Therefore he 
has taught us more emphatically and more frequently 
than any other inspired writer that “ God is love.” It 
is when we pass from the Pauline to the J ohannine 
conception of the Gospel that we come to realise the 
exquisite tenderness and the delicious simplicity of 
the fatherly love of God. There is no contradiction 
between the holy and blessed apostles. From time to 
time St. Paul expresses this crowning truth clearly 
and strongly. But it is only at the feet of St. John, 
and in the prolonged contemplation of the human 
face of Christ, that we come to realise, in all its rich- 
ness and many-sided intensity, the eternal, the un- 
alterable, the inexhaustible love of God. 


THE EVERLASTING KINGDOM OF CHRIST. 


“ I saw in the night visions, and, behold, there came with the 
clouds of heaven one like unto a Son of Man, and he came even to 
the Ancient of days, and they brought him near before him. And 
there was given him dominion, and glory, and a kingdom, that 
all the peoples, nations and languages should serve him : his 
dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass 
away, and his kingdom that which shall not be destroyed.” — 
Daniel vii. 13 and 14. 


THE EVERLASTING KINGDOM OF CHRIST. 


O F late thoughtful and scripturally-instructed 
Christians have been studying the Gospels 
more diligently than ever. As the result of many 
providential circumstances, including the attacks of 
enemies quite as much as the investigations of 
friends, we have discovered the real historical Christ 
as He was never discovered by any previous genera- 
tion. That discovery has brought to light the fact 
that the main and most characteristic tenets of 
Christ were the Fatherhood of God and the Kingdom 
of God. It is very surprising that Christian students 
of the New Testament should have practically over- 
looked these obvious facts so long. But any one 
who reads the Gospels unconventionally and intel- 
ligently will find that Jesus Christ is constantly 
talking about “ the Father ” and about “ the king- 
dom.” 

Have you ever seriously pondered the fact thac 
Jesus Christ was always preaching “ the king- 
dom,” and that in the model prayer which He 


58 


ESSENTIAL CHRISTIANITY. 


gave ns He taught us to pray always that His 
“ kingdom ” might come ? (St. Matt. vi. 10). In the 
present day men are always talking about “the 
Church.” The air is full of the word, although it 
is one of the most ambiguous ever used, and there 
are almost as many different definitions of it as 
there are persons who use it. In view of this 
modern practice is it not startling to be reminded 
that in the model prayer there is no reference 
at all to the “ Church,” whilst the reference to 
the “kingdom” is prominent and pronounced? It 
is a striking contrast between the writings of the 
apostles and the teaching of our Lord that while 
they, especially in the later Epistles of St. Paul, 
refer continually to the Church and rarely to the 
Kingdom, Christ scarcely mentions the Church 
while the Kingdom is named in almost every dis- 
course. So far as the record goes Christ referred to 
the Church only twice, and one of those references 
was casual and insignificant. On the other hand, He 
speaks of the Kingdom not less than one hundred 
and twelve times. 

One of the most mischievous and fatal mistakes 
ever made in Christian history was the mistake of 
St. Augustine, who identified the Kingdom of God 
with the Church of God. The' Church exists for 
the sake of the Kingdom, but the Church is no 
more the Kingdom than the British army is the 
British Empire. It is high time for all Chris- 
tians to ponder the long-lost teaching of Christ 


THE EVERLASTING KINGDOM OF CHRIST. 59 


with respect to the Kingdom of God. I think there 
can be no doubt where, humanly speaking, Jesus 
Christ found and nourished His doctrine of the 
Kingdom. He found it in the Book of Daniel, and 
especially in the chapter of Daniel from which the 
text is taken. There are many evidences that the 
Book of Daniel was one of the favourite books of 
Jesus Christ, one of the books which He diligently 
and deeply studied during the years of peaceful 
obscurity in Nazareth before His stormy public 
ministry began. He makes several references to 
Daniel, and when the Book of Daniel is once under- 
stood it thrown quite a flood of light upon the 
numerous parables in which our Lord described the 
Kingdom. His parables refer primarily not to the 
individual soul, much less to the Church, but to the 
kingdom of God, which He declared again and 
again and again it was the first object of His life 
to establish, and which, He asserted, it ought to be 
the first object of our lives to promote. He summed 
up all our duties in the ever-memorable command to 
“ seek first the kingdom of God and His righteous- 
ness ” (St. Matt. vi. 33). 

Now what is that kingdom ? We may learn from 
the Book of Daniel. When we take up this book we 
find it is very different from any other in the Old 
Testament. There is nothing parochial, nothing pro- 
vincial, nothing peculiarly Jewish about it. We find 
ourselves in the great world, in the main stream of 
human history. The true philosophy of history is 


60 


ESSENTIAL CHRISTIANITY. 


written in this wonderful volume. Daniel was the 
great statesman of a world-empire, as well as a 
great saint. The main doctrine of the Book of 
Daniel, which refers not to any one nation or age, 
but to all nations and all ages, is clearly taught 
in the Vision from which the text is taken. That 
vision was the first of the great prophetic and 
historic visions of this inspired writer. It began, 
as you may remember, with the statement that 
the four winds of heaven “ brake forth upon the 
great sea/’ The Breath of God agitated the multi- 
tudinous ocean of human life, and out of that seeth- 
ing mass of apparent confusion arose in succession 
four great world-empires, symbolised by a lion with 
eagle’s wings, a bear, a leopard, and a yet more 
terrible beast “ diverse from all the beasts that were 
before it.” 

From the second century of the Christian era 
until now these four powerful and savage beasts 
have been supposed to symbolise the Babylonian, the 
Medo-Persian, the Greek and the Boman Empires. 
In our own day better-informed and more intelligent 
criticism has contended that this particular vision, 
for reasons into which I need not enter, does not 
specifically refer to the Boman Empire at all. It is 
supposed now that this vision is an allegorical 
representation of the four ancient empires which had 
their seat on the banks of the Euphrates. In that 
case we must distinguish between the Median Empire 
and the Persian Empire, so that these successive 


THE EVERLASTING KINGDOM OF CHRIST. 61 


governments may be identified with Nebuchadnezzar 
the Assyrian, Darius the Mede, Cyrus the Persian, 
and Alexander the Greek. But it really does not 
matter which of these interpretations we accept, as 
it does not in the least affect the significance of the 
vision, which is, that the kingdoms of this world, 
characterized by so much animal cruelty and ferocity, 
are all destined to be superseded by the “ kingdom 
of God,” characterized by humanity. As Professor 
Drummond has been lately pointing out, the modern 
doctrine of evolution has thrown a flood of light upon 
the doctrine of original sin. We seem to inherit from 
the animal w r orld passions and appetites which it is 
the object of Christianity to transform or destroy. 
We have long been accustomed to say of some 
persons that they are as cruel as a tiger, as obstinate 
as a mule, as remorseless as a shark, as proud as a 
peacock, as mean as a worm, as cunning as a serpent. 
There may be more literal truth in these familiar 
sayings than we or our forefathers ever realised. 

Further, it is evident that governments in their 
collective capacity exhibit on a gigantic scale the 
same animal passions and repulsive qualities which 
we witness in individuals. This is still true of the 
semi-heathen governments of the so-called civilised 
world. It is not wdthout too much justification, for 
example, that England is represented by a lion or a 
bull-dog, and Russia by a bear. Every nation is 
allegorically symbolised by some vicious animal or 
other. These nations reproduce the qualities of 


62 


ESSENTIAL CHRISTIANITY. 


such animals, especially in their foreign policy. No 
one who has studied universal history can doubt 
that it is for the most part a record of cruelty, 
lust and misery. I know nothing that has been 
done more to fill the minds of men with falsehood, 
and to hinder the progress of the kingdom of 
God, than the fallacies diligently perpetuated by 
servile historians, who try to gloss over the in- 
famies of rulers and to conceal their cruelties in a 
halo of “glory/* The history of the world up to 
now is a very bad and pitiable business indeed. 
All the great heathen governments which preceded 
the kingdom of Christ are not unfitly represented 
by lions, bears, leopards, and other cruel, ferocious, 
and bloodthirsty beasts. But the peculiarity of the 
New Kingdom which is to supersede them all, 
and to last for ever, is that the allegorical repre- 
sentation of it is “ a son of Man.” The symbolism 
of the vision before us is obviously intended to 
teach what so few Churches yet realise, that Christ 
came to establish in this world a kingdom founded 
not upon force, or cunning, or cruelty ; founded 
not in the spirit of the lion, or the bear, or the 
leopard ; but founded upon humanity by “ a son of 
Man,” the incarnation of brotherly love. Hence, 
when the representative of the ferocious Empire of 
Rome with cynical and curling lip asked Christ 
“ Art thou a king, then ? ” Christ answered at once, 
“ Yes, I am a king ” — but a very different king from 
any of whom Herod or Pilate had any conception. 


THE EVERLASTING KINGDOM OF CHRIST. 63 

They thought that this profession of kingship was 
such an exquisite joke that they wrote it upon His 
cross — “Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews.” A 
king ! This miserable carpenter a king ! ! Without 
one solitary soldier or policeman to clear the path 
before Him ! ! ! But the clergy did not see the joke. 
They thought it was carrying pleasantry too far. 
“Say that he said I am King of the Jews,” they 
urged. But no, Pontius Pilate would have his joke. 
So it stood as it was first written, in Latin, Hebrew, 
and Greek, the three languages spoken in that part 
of the Eoman Empire. 

Written in mockery and ridicule it was perfectly 
true. Pilate was unwittingly a prophet that day 
Christ was indeed a king, and His kingdom will last 
for ever. A very different king from Nebuchadnezzar, 
or Cyrus, or Alexander, or Caesar ! Even to-day, 
nineteen centuries later, only a small minority of 
Christians seem to be sufficiently instructed in the 
Word of Life to grasp His glorious idea. Jesus of 
Nazareth, the king who has come to establish in 
this w r orld a kingdom founded not upon force or 
ferocity, but upon humanity and brotherly love, 
declared that the first duty of every citizen of that 
kingdom (and every Christian must be a citizen of 
the kingdom) is to seek that kingdom ; to pray for 
the coming of that kingdom; to extend that king- 
dom ; in other words to expel the wild beast from 
foreign politics, and to bring in the Man of Nazareth. 

We had a beautiful illustration in the House of 


64 


ESSENTIAL CHRISTIANITY. 


Commons, last year, of the way in which this king- 
dom is extending. As Christ Himself said in one of 
the parables of the kingdom, it is like the silent 
leaven. It is seldom recorded in the newspapers until 
the deed is done. But in the House of Commons an 
event took place which would have been impossible 
at any previous period of human history, and which 
is a glorious evidence of the rapidly-increasing power 
of Jesus of Nazareth. God forbid that I should be 
so negligent as to fail to call your prompt attention 
to the fact that the vision of Daniel is being fulfilled 
in our midst. I do not know if you are aware of 
what took place. The House of Commons, although 
divided on many questions, presented, on the occa- 
sion to which I refer, a rare illustration of absolute 
unanimity. A resolution supported by the Prime 
Minister, with all the responsibilities of his high 
office, was passed without a dissentient voice or 
vote. What was the nature of that resolution? 
It was originally suggested by Mr. Cremer, a noble 
representative of the best sentiments of the de- 
mocracy. To the eternal credit of our kinsmen 
beyond the Atlantic, the President of the United 
States, at the request of both Houses of Congress, 
suggested a permanent treaty of arbitration with all 
civilised Powers willing to make such a treaty with 
the United States. Surely we, who are their kins- 
men, ought to be the very first to respond. I trust 
we shall be the first, as the House of Commons has 
now agreed by unanimous vote to welcome with 


THE EVERLASTING KINGDOM OF CHRIST. 65 

delight the overture from our kinsmen in the 
United States. Happily we have just settled 
by arbitration a difficulty between ourselves and 
them. But it is proposed to establish a permanent 
court of arbitration, so that any difficulty that may 
hereafter arise shall at once be referred to that court, 
and decided quickly, honourably, pleasantly, and in 
a Christian way. 

From the day such a court is established anything 
like war between the two great sections of the 
English-speaking world will become a moral im- 
possibility. I trust that, knit together in the bonds 
of unbroken amity, we shall set an example which 
other nations will quickly follow. If we, who have 
been the most warlike of all modern nations, are 
now T so influenced by the spirit of Jesus Chrst that 
in the House of Commons not one single man had 
the courage, in the name of the old heathenism, to 
resist Mr. Cremer’s motion, we may well believe that 
better days are at hand, and that the twentieth 
century will not he stained with human blood. 
Blessed be God, the vision of Daniel is being real- 
ised. The facts mentioned in the House of Commons 
were enough to make the ears of men to tingle. I 
am afraid many Christians are so selfish, so wrapped 
up in themselves, their families, and their sects, that 
they have no care for the kingdom of God, although 
they have the temerity to say “ Thy kingdom come.” 

Let no man henceforth pray that prayer unless he 
knows what it means, and intends what it means. 

F 


66 


ESSENTIAL CHRISTIANITY. 


What did Sir John Lubbock say in the House of 
Commons? He said that at this moment, on a 
peace footing, we have three-and-a-half millions of 
men under arms in Europe, and that when the 
insane arrangements now contemplated in France 
and Germany are completely carried out there will 
be twenty millions of Europeans trained to arms. 
At present, with all the pauperism of Europe, our 
governments are insanely spending two hundred 
millions sterling every year in keeping men idle 
and ready for war. Because so many of our fellow 
creatures are withdrawn from the healthful in- 
dustries of life every man in Europe is compelled to 
work one hour a day longer than would he necessary 
if these idle men were at work. As Sir John 
Lubbock said, “ if you want an eight-hours day 
reduce your armaments.” There are sixty-three 
millions of people in the United States, but they have 
only twenty-three thousand men under arms. If that 
vast continent can live without millions of soldiers, 
what need have we of millions of soldiers in Europe ? 

If all the ministers of Christ unanimously pro- 
tested against these great armies, and declared they 
would tolerate them no longer, these armies would 
be disbanded. I blush to say that the protest 
against war to-day does not come from the Church 
but from the Socialists, and from the destructive 
and anti-Christian Socialists. How shameful it is 
that the only party in Germany which is protesting 
against this insane militarism is the Socialist party 


THE EVERLASTING KINGDOM OF CHRIST. 67 


which consists so largely of men who have rejected 
Christianity ! They have not rejected ethical 
Christianity. They are the true representatives of 
Christianity in their protest against militarism. 
How often has it been true that outsiders enter the 
kingdom of heaven while nominal Christians are 
cast out. I know nothing more disgraceful to us 
than that the protest against war should be made 
by others than the avowed disciples of Christ. The 
kingdom which Christ came to establish was a 
kingdom of peace, and when the angels saluted His 
birth they cried, “ Peace on earth, and good will 
among men/' May God hasten the time when we 
shall all love and trust one another as He loves and 
trusts us ! We are all the children of one Father. 
We are all brethren ; why should we hate and 
suspect one another, and try to excite fiendish 
passions in one another ? God has made of one 
blood every nation under heaven. If instead of 
spending our time, money and brains in misunder- 
standing and deceiving one another, in making one 
another miserable, and in killing one another, we 
spent our time, money, and brains in trying to make 
one another happy, what a delightful world this 
would become ! 

Let me remind you in conclusion of the intensely 
personal interest which every man and every woman 
has in this great issue. The doctrine of the King- 
dom springs out of the Fatherhood of God. God 
does not wish us to fight with one another, because 


68 


ESSENTIAL CHRISTIANITY. 


He loves us all. He would have the older brother 
and the younger brother live together in peace and 
brotherly kindness. This tender-hearted God is 
ours. There is one thing we can all do, at once, for 
the kingdom. We can pray God to establish it in 
our own hearts. The nation reproduces on a large 
scale the character of the citizens who compose the 
nation. So long as the citizens are lions and bears 
and leopards and other ferocious beasts, the nations 
will continue to be menageries of such creatures. 
When the prophecy of Isaiah is fulfilled, when every- 
thing that is vicious is cast out of our hearts, when 
we are filled with love we shall immediately begin 
to reproduce that love in public and national life. 
Is your heart full of love to God and man ? These 
two cannot be separated. Some of you have tried 
the way of pride and selfishness. It is not a suc- 
cessful way, is it ? If you are bad-tempered or 
selfish you are not an enviable person. Your policy 
is a suicidal one. So is it with the nations. Those 
who use the sword shall perish by the sword. The 
empires to which Daniel referred have perished in 
the blood which they have shed. It is the same in 
the individual life. If you are indifferent to God 
what a miserable being you are. If you realise that 
‘ God is love,” He will change your heart. You 
may say, It is impossible. I am selfish and bad 
tempered ; I love money ; I am the victim of lust, 
drink, gambling. God knows all that. With man 
the reclamation of such as you are is indeed im- 


THE EVERLASTING KINGDOM OF CHRIST. 69 


possible, but with God all things are possible. Why- 
do you not bow your knee to Him now ? He will 
hear you. What do you gain by fighting against 
Christ ? But perhaps your difficulty is of a different 
kind. Perhaps you feel unworthy. Perhaps you 
know nothing about religion. My brother, no words 
that I can utter are strong enough to describe the 
intense personal love of God to you. 

Do you know that God cannot help loving 
you ? He loves you because He is love. Listen 
to the words which He utters through an inspired 
prophet : “ I, even I, am he that iDlotteth out 

your transgressions for mine own sake” (Isaiah 
xliii. 25). For mine own sake — not for your sake, 
not because you ask me, not because you desire it, 
but because I cannot help it ! His very nature 
is love, and He is impelled by an irresistible 
necessity of His nature to love you with all His 
heart always. When will you love Him ? Christ 
could find no words strong enough to describe the 
love of God to all of us, however much we may 
have wandered from Him, or rebelled against Him. 
His kingdom is everlasting, and His love is equally 
everlasting. There are but two things that any of 
us can do to please God. The first is to believe 
that He loves us and everybody else, and the second 
is to spread that good news. Will you come to 
God now ? Will you become a citizen of this ever- 
lasting kingdom, and fight against everything that 
fills the world with misery ? What a glorious pro- 


70 


ESSENTIAL CHRISTIANITY. 


gramme is this ! How free from meanness, selfish- 
ness and degradation ! Does it not make your 
blood dance, does it not fill you with delightful 
enthusiasm ? God has not brought you into existence 
to eat and drink and live for yourself. God has 
created you that you may share His own unselfish 
joy. Come to this gracious God. Come now. He 
loves you. He yearns over you. He died for you 
as truly and specially as though you were the only 
one who needed His mercy. In the name of Christ 
I beseech you, return to your Father ; and then, all 
your days and with all your, might, “ seek first the 
kingdom of God/* 


THE ALL-SUFFICIENCY OF CHEIST. 


Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, and the truth, and the life : 
no one cometh unto the Father, but by me.” — St. John xiv. 6. 


THE ALL-SUFFICIENCY OF CHRIST. 


T HIS great saying is true universally and absolutely, 
but our Lord utters it in a special and limited 
sense. He is speaking on this occasion of the Eternal 
Father. It is in relation to Him that this particular 
sentence must be understood. Jesus Christ is the 
Way to the Father, the Truth about the Father, and 
the Life in relation to the Father. 

It is not merely that He shows the way, or 
makes the way, He is the Way. He does show 
the way, but He shows the way by pointing to 
Himself. He does make the way, but He makes 
the way by being Himself the full, perfect, sufficient 
atonement, sacrifice, and satisfaction for all the 
sins of all mankind. Yes, in the deepest and 
ultimate sense He is the Way. Like every other 
person He Himself is immeasurably greater than 
anything He says or does. “ Never man spake like 
this Man,” and no man ever did such deeds as this 
Man. But He is Himself, in the glorious mystery 
of His deeper nature, the greatest Word of God, an^ 


ESSENTIAL CHRISTIANITY. 


the most stupendous Work of God. Perfect God and 
perfect Man, He is the Eock upon which the Church 
is built, and against which the gates of Hades can 
never prevail. 

He is the Living Bridge which has spanned the 
unfathomable gulf between God and man. He has 
solved the insolvable, and achieved the impossible. 
The mystery of all ages, the great “ mystery of god- 
liness,” is revealed at last. What is the greatest 
of all the questions that have perplexed the minds 
of the best and wisest of mankind ? It is this : 
How can man attain to God ? How can the creature 
reach and touch the Creator ? As St. Paul reminds 
us in the Epistle to the Colossians, Oriental mysticism 
attempted to bridge over the abyss between God and 
man by inventing endless mediators and demi-gods. 
Jesus Christ swept away all these fantastic and yet 
pathetic dreams by presenting in His own Person, as 
an accomplished fact, the actual union of God and 
Man. Non-Christian science in our own day is an 
impressive witness that man cannot by searching find 
out God, that to our unaided faculties and instruments 
He is unapproachable, invisible, incomprehensible, 
unknown, and unknowable. And yet, as Mr. Herbert 
Spencer admits, there is in Nature something that 
“ persists,” something which the men of science can 
neither explain nor explain away. Behind and 
beneath all the phenomena of the universe, with 
which phenomena alone human science deals, there 
is “ something.” 


THE ALL-SUFFICIENCY OF CHEIST. 7 % / 

Non-Christian scientists say that this “ something ” 
is unknown. That is true of those who say it. And 
that it is also unknowable. But that is an attempt 
to prove a negative, which is impossible. Wise and 
learned men ! you are stepping out of your proper 
sphere, which is to deal only with the pheno- 
menal. You are arguing from a basis of admitted 
ignorance, and that surely is inadmissible. You say 
that you do not know. I admit it. Scripture said that 
many hundreds of years before you were born. 

“ Now the natural man receiveth not the things of 
the Spirit of God ; for they are foolishness unto 
him; and he cannot ( ou Ivvarai) know them” (1 
Cor. ii. 14). But the children of our Sunday School 
do know, for they have learnt from Jesus Christ 
what your telescopes, your microscopes, and your 
spectroscopes can never reveal. Things hidden from 
the wise and learned, leaning on their own under- 
standing, are revealed to babes, leaning on the mind 
of Christ. When either babes or philosophers “ look 
unto Jesus ” 

“ The Invisible appears in sight, 

And God is seen by mortal eye.” 

In the Christian Church itself the old Oriental senti- 
ment to which the Apostle Paul refers, still survives 
in the disposition to hanker after other Mediators, 
the Mother of Christ, the Saints, the Angels, the 
Pope, the Christian ministry. But Christ Himself, 
as He tells us in the text, is the Way, the “ new and 
living Way ” by which every human being can come 


76 


ESSENTIAL CHRISTIANITY. 


at once and directly to the Father. The illustrious 
Robertson of Brighton was quite right when he 
declared, in ever memorable language, that the 
highest duty of the Christian minister is to bring 
his fellow-men to Christ, and then himself to 
get out of the way. When Alexander the Great 
visited Diogenes the Cynic in his tub, he asked what 
Alexander could do for Diogenes. The Cynic 
answered that there was only one thing which 
Alexander could do for Diogenes, and that was to 
abstain from standing between him and the sun. 
In like manner the highest service that any Chris- 
tian can render me is to abstain from standing 
between me and the Sun of Righteousness who has 
already risen with healing in His wings. Let none 
fall. into the mistake into which Philip fell when the 
text was uttered. Let us not say, “ Shew us the 
Father.” Has Christ been so long with us, and are 
we still as ignorant as Philip ? He who has come to 
Christ has already come to the Father. As He Him- 
self declared, “ He that hath seen me hath seen the 
Father” (xiv. 9). “I and the Father are one” (x. 30). 

Let me at this point ask you, in the very presence 
of God, a plain and direct question. Let me put it 
in the form in which a Scotch shepherd once put it 
to a young man who afterwards became a burning 
and shining light in the Church of Scotland. The 
shepherd was walking along a mountain sheep-path 
when he met the young student, and greeted him 
with the startling question, “Do you know the 


THE ALL-SUFFICIENCY OF CHRIST. 77 

Father ? ” Without waiting for an answer the 
shepherd pursued his lonely way. "Do you know’ 
the Father?” The question kept ringing in the 
memory of the young man until his conscience was 
aroused and he came to know the Father, and 
entered the Christian ministry. Long years after- 
wards he found himself in the same part of Scot- 
land, and singularly enough met the same shepherd, 
now a very old man. The old man repeated the 
old question, “Do you know the Father?” And 
now with a happy smile the minister was able to 
answer at once, “ I do.” To-day I am crossing your 
path. You and I may never meet again. “Do 
you know the Father ? ” God grant that when this 
question is put to you on a future occasion you may 
be able, like the minister, unhesitatingly and trium- 
phantly to say, “ I do.” 

Secondly, Jesus Christ is the Truth about the 
Father. That is to say He not merely teaches the 
Truth, He is the Truth. He is the Truth in this 
significant and remarkable way : His very existence 
reveals the Trinity to us. The Trinity is the essential 
doctrine of the Christian religion ; the doctrine which 
differentiates it from every other religion, even from 
the Jewish religion. Why do we baptize our children 
into the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of 
the Holy Spirit ? Why do we dismiss the congrega- 
tion with a triune benediction? There are those 
who have been, not unnaturally, tempted to believe 
that the doctrine of the Trinity is a metaphysical 


78 


ESSENTIAL CHRISTIANITY. 


abstraction with which foolish theologians have filled 
the minds of men. It is not a metaphysical ab- 
straction, but a blessed fact with an intense practical 
interest and importance for every one of us. 

For what does it reveal ? It reveals, as nothing 
else could reveal, that the ultimate and essential 
feature of God is Fatherhood. The very existence of 
Christ, His eternal relationship to the Father, proves 
that God is naturally, essentially, inevitably a Father. 
What does Christ Himself say ? “ Neither doth any 
know the Father, save the Son and he to whomso- 
ever the Son willeth to reveal Him.” (St. Matt, 
xi. 27). Obviously the “ Son ” reveals the “ Father ” ; 
they are correlative terms. Without Sonship there 
is no Fatherhood. The Eternal Son reveals the 
Eternal Father. This is the only relation in which 
God is eternal. He is not an Eternal Creator, for 
there was a time when no creature existed. He 
is not an Eternal King, for there was a time when 
He had no subject. He is not an Eternal Judge, for 
there was a time when no being existed amenable to 
His judgment. And if the doctrine of the Trinity 
be not true, the Fatherhood of God is contingent, 
is an accident of time, is not an essential fact of His 
nature, is something that once did not exist, and 
may cease to exist. But if the doctrine of the 
Trinity be true, God is an Eternal Father, ex necessi- 
tate rei, by the very necessity of His nature. 

Now that the mystery of the divine nature is so 
far revealed in Christ we discover that the essential 


THE ALL-SUFFICIENCY OF CHRIST. 


79 


idea of God is a Paternal idea. Unhappily, although 
we are in the last decade of the nineteenth century, 
I am obliged to confess that as yet no Church has 
realised the absolute and essential Fatherhood of 
God. Both to the Catholic and to the Protestant 
God is supremely a Judge. That is a truth, but it is 
not the supreme truth. This one-sided and imperfect 
view of God has had an appalling effect upon the 
minds of Christians. I shall never forget the im- 
pression produced upon me by a remark made when 
I was pastor of an important London church. A 
layman who had been for many years a member of 
my own communion, and had held every office 
open to a layman, confessed to me that until I 
came there and impressed upon him the essential 
truth of the Fatherhood of God he had never, 
during the whole course of his long Christian life, 
thought of God, specially, vividly, and supremely, as 
a Father. God had been to him a King and a Judge, 
and nothing more. The tender, gracious, delightful 
conception of God as his Father dawned upon him 
only in his old age, but with the most blessed results 
in his own personal happiness. When that venerable 
Christian bore this testimony in my presence I 
resolved that I would never lose an opportunity of 
impressing upon those who call themselves Christians 
the unspeakable blessedness of the great fact. In 
the better Christianity of the future the Fatherhood 
of God will occupy a much more prominent place 
than it occupies now. The day is coming, is already 


80 


ESSENTIAL CHRISTIANITY. 


dawning, when the Christian Church generally will 
accept the Christianity of St. John, who realised that 
God was his Father ; and our children’s children will 
say with an intensity and a delight of which we are 
perhaps incapable, “ Our Father which art in heaven.” 

In the third place, Jesus Christ is the Life in 
relation to the Father. His incarnation made Him 
the new Head of humanity, “ the last Adam.” We 
are not in the deepest and fullest sense “ sons of 
God ” until we are united to Christ, as the branch 
is united to the vine, and as our limbs are united to 
our body. In a lower, and yet most sacred sense 
all men are the sons of God because they are the 
sons of the first Adam, whom one Evangelist rightly 
calls “ the son of God ” (St. Luke iii. 38). But in 
the best sense, in the sense of highest sonship, no 
man has any right to call himself the son of God 
until he has trusted in Christ, been born of God 
and become united to Christ. When a man is able 
to say as St. Paul says, not in a metaphorical or 
allegorical sense, but as the expression of a vital 
fact, “ I live ; and yet no longer I, but Christ liveth 
in me” (Gal ii. 20), then indeed he lives, and he 
lives the life of true sonship. 

Jesus Christ has given to us His own life of 
sonship, which is His own peculiar “ glory.” This 
life He reproduces in us, and thus we are able to cry, 
as never before, in the pathetic language of St. Paul, 
“ Abba, Father ” (Gal. iv. 6). “Dear Father.” We 
must eat His flesh, we must drink His blood, or 


THE ALL-SUFFICIENCY OF CHRIST. 81 

we have no life in us — no “ life " in the New Testa- 
ment sense which expresses not the old life, but 
a new Christ-like life. That is our “ true life” We 
were created for that, and we are utterly dissatisfied 
until we experience that. Can you imagine any 
more imperfect or unworthy conception of Christi- 
anity than that Christ came to save us from 
hell ? This statement is true, of course. But that 
was not His main object. His main object was 
that we might “ have life, and have it abundantly ” 
(St. John x. 10). Neither to take us out of hell 
nor to take us into heaven but to give us His own 
life, to make us like Himself did Christ die and rise 
again. That is the glorious purpose of His resur- 
rection life. 

Have you this true life ? Do you so share it as to 
be in conscious fellowship with Christ? At St. 
James’s Hall, a few days ago, at the close of the 
service a Canadian gentleman came into the vestry. 
I had been speaking of union with Christ. “ That 
is the very thing I want,” he said. “ I realise now, 
as never before, that although I have been a Christian, 
I have never been conscious of this union with Christ. 
An aching void in my heart has been filled. I lacked 
something, now I have it.” This is our true life, 
this is the only real life, the life that comes to us as 
the “ free gift ” of God. When will all those who 
wish to become Christians submit to Christ, and 
accept this life at His crucified hands ? There are 
many more who wish to be Christian than appears 
G 


82 


ESSENTIAL CHRISTIANITY. 


on the surface. In all directions there is an intense 
desire to be good. 

But the great delusion is this: men think that 
Christ will cultivate or develop our old natural 
life, and that we must co-operate with Him. But 
Christ will do nothing of the kind. He gives us 
a new life, His own life, that we may lead a 
Christ-like life. The whole ethical object of Christi- 
anity is summed up in the phrase “ Christ-like life.” 
You are a Christian if you do what Christ did. 
Let us understand one another. The reason why 
the majority of the peoples of Europe are outside 
all Churches is because we Christians have not yet 
realised that our duty is not merely to get to heaven, 
but to lead a Christ-like life on earth. You say 
“ That is impossible.” Yes ! if we were left to 
ourselves. But do you not remember that Christ 
looked with compassionate eyes on His disciples and 
said, “ With men this is impossible ; but with God 
all things are possible ” ? (St. Matt. xix. 26). 

The question is not what can you do by your own 
efforts, but what can the Spirit of God do super- 
naturally and miraculously if you place yourself in 
God’s hands. Let Him accomplish the purpose for 
which He breathed into you the breath of human 
life. I am continually witnessing the miracle of 
men being brought out of darkness into light, out of 
the bondage of evil into the glorious liberty of the 
sons of God. This is a greater miracle than curing 
the sick. It is one of those “ greater things ” (St. 


THE ALL-SUFFICIENCY OF CHRIST. 


83 


John i. 50) which God promised should be repeated 
in every age. I know thousands of men and women, 
now bright and radiant, who declare that this 
marvellous change has been wrought in them by 
Christ. The Apostle Paul said, “ I can do all things.” 
That is a bold statement even for an apostle. But 
he adds, “ I can do all things in living union with 
Christ.” With that explanation it is no longer pre- 
sumptuous. It is no more a question of what Paul 
can do, but of what God can do if Paul allows 
God to have His own way. We, too, may repeat 
the bold words of St. Paul on the same condition, 
and under the same circumstances. 

I know there are some Christians who, when 
we speak of free Salvation, think there is some- 
thing very dangerous about the phrase. But let 
us understand it. It does not mean that God 
proposes to place a premium on idleness or laziness. 
It means that He saves us so absolutely that we may 
have 

** A soul at leisure from itself,” 

and, therefore, ample time to promote the salva- 
tion of others. You remember how on one occa- 
sion the disciples were in the midst of a great 
storm. The waves leaped high, the disciples were 
wet to the skin and utterly weary ; they toiled in 
vain, they made no progress, they only just pre- 
vented themselves from being dashed upon the rocks. 
In the midst of the tempest Christ stepped on hoard 
their little boat, and they were at once in their 


84 


ESSENTIAL CHRISTIANITY. 


desired haven. There was no more storm, no more 
toil after Christ came. But did they say, “ Now we 
will lie down, and lounge on the shore ” ? No ! they 
began at once to preach the Gospel. 

The fact that they themselves were safe did not 
make them indifferent to the needs of others. Take 
my own case. If I had to be continually question- 
ing my own security, and constantly discussing 
whether I myself was saved, I should be of no use to 
anybody else. If I were overwhelmingly engaged in 
working out my own salvation in that miserable 
sense, what service could I render to the weary 
millions of London ? But if, trusting in Christ, I 
am no longer pre-occupied with my own safety, I 
have opportunity and leisure to promote the happi- 
ness and salvation of others. When we know that 
we ourselves are saved we are qualified to work 
for the salvation of others. We may all have that 
knowledge, that divine certitude. I often think of 
the young Boman patrician who, having become a 
Christian, was commanded to burn incense before 
the image of the Emperor. On his declining to do 
so the enraged Proconsul exclaimed, “ You refuse 
to obey my order because if I command you to be 
beheaded you imagine this Jesus of yours will take 
you to heaven.” To which the young Christian 
replied, “ No, I do not imagine it, I know it.” What 
a glorious ring of certainty there was about that 
avowal ! 

Our sins are real, our miseries are real : we 


THE ALL-SUFFICIENCY OF CHRIST. 


85 


need a salvation that is equally real. Will you 
take that salvation now ? When Mr. Moody was 
preaching in Glasgow some time ago, a young 
mechanic, coming home from work, forced his way 
into the end of the crowded hall. As he entered 
Mr. Moody was speaking, and was holding out his 
hand in his earnest way in the direction of the young 
workman. “ Will you take eternal life as a gift ? ” 
said Mr. Moody. The young man felt as if the 
question were addressed directly and personally to 
him. “ Eternal life as a gift ! ” he exclaimed, stepping 
back involuntarily, “ take it as a gift ; I should be 
a great fool if I did not.” In that simple, blunt 
way he resolved at once, on the spur of the moment, 
to accept the free gift of God. That young work- 
man is a happy and useful Christian to-day. I 
repeat the same question. Will you receive the 
Eternal Life which is offered you as a free gift in 
Christ ? How can you hesitate ? Let us all accept 
this divine salvation now. 







THE UNANSWERABLE ARGUMENT FOR 
CHRISTIANITY. 




“ Verily, verily, I say unto thee, We speak that we do know, 
and bear witness of that we have seen.”— St. John iii. 11. 


THE UNANSWERABLE ARGUMENT FOR 
CHRISTIANITY. 


E VERYONE who has studied the Gospels is aware 
that our Lord was in the habit of prefacing 
statements of quite unusual importance with the 
solemn words, “ Verily, verily.” He did this three 
times in His conversation with the great teacher 
Nicodemus. He did so the first time when He 
informed this distinguished Hebrew theologian that 
real Christianity does not consist in the mental 
reception of certain doctrines. He did so the second 
time when He declared that Christianity does not 
consist in an outward amendment of life, but in an 
inward and spiritual change in the formative depths 
of our being. The Jewish Rabbi expressed amaze- 
ment at the existence of a religion so transcendental 
and so miraculous. Then our Lord used His charac- 
teristic phrase the third time, when He asserted in 
reply that the essential fact of Christianity, though 
so utterly supernatural, was a matter of actual per- 
sonal experience. Identifying Himself with all His 


90 


ESSENTIAL CHRISTIANITY. 


true disciples He said, “Verily, verily, I say untc 
thee, we speak that we do know, and bear witness of 
that we have seen.” The final and decisive evidence 
of Christianity is the evidence of experience. 

Christianity, and Christianity alone, accepts, un- 
hesitatingly, unreservedly, and absolutely, the great 
modern scientific test of verification. 

“ What we have felt and seen, 

With confidence we tell ; 

And publish to the sons of men 
The signs infallible.” 

This distinctive feature of Christianity is brought 
out very vividly in a recent volume from the learned 
and devout pen of Dr. Dale, entitled, “ The Living 
Christ and the Four Gospels.” That great theo- 
logian calls attention to the remarkable fact that the 
scientific and critical attack upon Christianity in our 
own time, by far the most powerful and searching 
attack ever made upon our faith, has produced no 
appreciable effect upon Christians. So far as is 
known, not one single prominent and genuine Chris- 
tian has abandoned Christianity. Undoubtedly, as 
Dr. Dale admits, the modern attack has had consider- 
able influence with those who are not Christian. It 
has prejudiced many of them against the Christian 
religion. It has created for some of them almost 
insuperable difficulties in the way of accepting 
the Christian religion. But no one who has ever 
had any actual personal experience of the Christian 
life has been seriously troubled by modern scepticism. 


ARGUMENT FOR CHRISTIANITY, 


91 


This cannot be put down to the fact that all Chris- 
tians are uneducated or stupid. I will not quote 
Christian ministers like the late Bishop Thirlwall, 
who was by universal consent one of the intellectual 
giants of the century, but take three names as typi- 
cal specimens — Michael Faraday, Robert Browning, 
and John Bright. These three men stood in the very 
front rank of science, literature, and public life. It 
would be impossible to mention three names on the 
anti-Christian side equally eminent. How is it that 
the ceaseless attacks upon Christianity have not 
disturbed the faith of such men ? It is, as Dr. Dale 
says, “ because real Christian faith rests upon foun- 
dations which lie far beyond the reach of scientific 
and historical criticisms.” 

Dr. Dale names six separate particulars of the 
personal consciousness of real Christians. In the 
first place, there are many cases of instantaneous 
deliverance from an evil habit. I think, at this 
moment, of three of the most notorious drunkards, 
gamblers, and wife-beaters in Soho. Six years ago 
these three men rolled into Wardour Hall. In that 
one service, by the mighty power of God, they were 
sobered and converted. From that day to this 
ihey have never touched alcoholic liquor, and never 
gambled, sworn, or ill-treated their families. To-day 
they are three of the most respected and useful 
members of the West London Mission. Any philo- 
sophy of life which cannot give an adequate explana- 
tion of that sudden and total change in the characters 


92 


ESSENTIAL CHRISTIANITY. 


and habits of these three men is evidently a most 
defective and unsatisfactory philosophy of life. 
They themselves say that this sudden change was 
achieved by the power of Jesus Christ. They know 
that by an inward personal experience, and by con- 
stant fellowship with Christ. 

Nothing that scientific or critical sceptics can 
say will touch faith founded upon the conscious- 
ness of such a revolutionary change of the whole 
being. Moreover, these three cases are not at all 
unusual. I have known many men who have 
been suddenly and for ever saved from drunken- 
ness, gambling, impurity, blasphemy, greed, and 
bad temper. Secondly, Dr. Dale points out that 
there are numerous other cases of conversion not 
thus dramatically sudden, but slow and gradual. 
In the final issue, however, these gradual conver- 
sions are equally real and complete. Thirdly, multi- 
tudes of the most sane and conscientious persons 
in all parts of the world testify to a personal 
deliverance from an intolerable sense of guilt. They 
sum up the happiest change of their life in such 
language as this : — 

‘ * Thy sins are forgiven, Accepted thou art ; ” 

They listen, and heaven springs up in their heart. 

All cases of conversion are not accompanied by 
the removal of a terrible sense of guilt. Ellen Wat- 
son, whose biography is one of the most beautiful 
productions of our time, was converted, and became 
a happy Christian, without any such sense of sin. 


ARGUMENT FOR CHRISTIANITY. 


93 


Hers, however, was a quite exceptional case. Most 
of those who now live in the conscious enjoyment of 
the favour of God remember, like Bunyan’s Pilgrim, 
the time when the crushing burden was taken 
from their aching back. In the fourth place, Dr. 
Dale points out that the true Christian is conscious 
that he “ has passed into the divine and eternal 
order.” By this is meant that his eyes have been 
opened to vast realms of fact which are unknowable 
to the unregenerate. He is no longer absorbed by 
the seen and temporal. He realises the unseen, the 
eternal, and the abiding. 

In the fifth place, the true Christian, as St. John 
points out, is conscious of “ fellowship ” (1 John 
i. 3) with Jesus Christ. He is not merely in com- 
munion with the living Church. That is a very 
small matter relatively to communion with the 
living Christ. To every scriptural Christian Christ 
is not dead and buried, but risen, and “ alive for 
evermore.” He is not far away in heaven, but 
here upon earth. With this living and ever-present 
Christ the real Christian has daily and hourly 
“ fellowship.” Lastly, the Christian becomes con- 
scious of life “ in ” Christ, to whom he is as vitally 
united as the branch to the vine, and as the members 
to the body. He expresses the deepest fact of his 
consciousness when he says, in language that is 
not figurative or metaphorical, but literally and 
scientifically exact, “ I live, yet not I, but Christ 
liveth in me.” 


94 


ESSENTIAL CHRISTIANITY. 


Of course, when these things are mentioned as 
data of the Christian consciousness, the superficial, 
the cynical, and the inexperienced, will describe 
them as the creations of a fevered brain, mere 
subjective delusions. But this will appear a very 
feeble reply when it is remembered that what some 
non-Christians have the temerity to describe as a 
delusion or a hallucination, is shared by so many of 
the wisest and best in all ages. Take the case of St. 
Paul. How absurd it is to explain away his con- 
sciousness of salvation in Christ by calling it, quite 
gratuitously, a delusion. Which of his cynical oppo- 
nents has a more acute intellect than he ? Take, 
again, St. Augustine, one of the profoundest thinkers 
of all time ; and yet he came to be conscious of per- 
sonal salvation in Christ in a most practical and 
positive manner, and it revolutionised his whole life. 
Take, again, the case of Martin Luther, a sturdy, 
manly German, who, under deep conviction of sin, 
even longed to die. But one day, in his cell, he 
heard the voice of God say, “ Thy sins are forgiven 
thee,” and all was changed. 

Take, again, the case of John Wesley, who, by 
general consent, was a much mightier influence in 
the creation of modern England than either Pitt 
or Wellington. John Wesley’s whole career as a 
devout clergyman was a dismal failure on both 
sides of the Atlantic, until that memorable even- 
ing in the little chapel in Aldersgate Street, when 
that took place which must be described in his 


ARGUMENT FOR CHRISTIANITY. 


95 


own words: — “I felt my heart strangely warmed. 
I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone for salva- 
tion : and an assurance was given me, that he had 
taken away my sins, even mine , and saved me from 
the law of sin and death ” ( Wesley's Journals, vol. i. 
page 103). From that hour all was changed, and 
he, by nature one of the most rational, sober-minded 
and anti-sensational of men, became the flaming 
evangelist of the great revival which revolutionised 
England, and saved these shores from the horrors of 
a Reign of Terror. 

Take again the case of Dr. Chalmers. He was in 
the prime of life, and at the summit of his reputa- 
tion as a theologian, an economist, and a statesman, 
when he was converted. Then he put all his 
strength into the great spiritual revival, which 
produced the Disruption and the Free Church of 
Scotland. Take again Mr. Spurgeon, who, when a 
young man, was suddenly converted in a Primitive 
Methodist chapel, and all the world knows the 
result. Let me also, in all humility, bear my 
personal testimony. The experience of which I 
speak is my cwn experience. For thirty years I 
have lived in the light of that great revelation of 
God’s love, which was given to me when I was a 
school boy in Wales. Now you may put me aside ; 
but you cannot put aside St. Paul, St. Augustine, 
Wesley, Chalmers, and Spurgeon. Yet they were 
only representatives of millions more who bear a 
similar testimony. 


96 


ESSENTIAL CHRISTIANITY. 


What always seems to me one of the most over- 
whelming scientific verifications of this primal 
truth, is the undesigned coincidence and concur- 
rence of the testimony of so many of the best men 
and women of our race. Take, as an example, 
a service in St. James’s Hall. To this Hall on Sun- 
days come Christians of many races, and of many 
divergent ecclesiastical types. They come from 
the ends of the earth, they have never seen one 
another before, and they meet on this platform. 
Without the least hesitation I invite them to pray, 
or to go into the inquiry room and direct persons 
under conviction of sin. While great differences of 
opinion, theological and ecclesiastical, divide them, 
they all agree on the essentials of the Christian 
religion. Take a yet more striking proof of the 
unanimity of real Christians. Examine any hymn- 
book that ever comes into your hands. You will 
find it contains hymns written by Anglicans and 
Nonconformists, by Protestants, Roman Catholics, 
and members of the Greek Church. Yet the naked 
essentials of personal experimental Christianity are 
so inevitably the same in every Christian of every 
communion, that unless you look in the index of the 
hymn-book for the name of the author you can never 
say whether a particular hymn was written by a 
Quaker or by a Roman Catholic. The way in which 
the hymn writers of all Churches agree absolutely 
with respect to Essential Christianity is an over- 
whelming evidence of its truth. 


ARGUMENT FOR CHRISTIANITY. 


97 


It may be further objected that the disciples of 
other religions make the same appeal to conscious- 
ness that I have now made ; that the Mohammedan, 
for example, takes his stand on the same ground of 
personal experience. This is an absolute mistake. 
Produce your Mohammedan, and allow me to cross- 
examine him for a few minutes. There is not one 
Mohammedan on the face of the earth who would 
say, “ I live, yet not I, but Mohammed liveth in 
me.” The essential creed of the Mohammedan is 
expressed in the brief sentence “ Allah is Allah.” 
That is to say, the Mohammedan believes in the 
unity and omnipotence of God as we do ; but he has 
no trace of that consciousness of personal “ fellow- 
ship ” with God which we enjoy “ in ” Christ. It is 
essential to note that the Christian consciousness 
does not testify to a truth as Mohammedanism does, 
namely to the unity of God : the Christian conscious- 
ness testifies to a Living Person. The Apostle Paul 
could say, “We know whom we have believed,” not 
“ what ” we have believed. The Christian’s con- 
sciousness testifies to the actual impact of that 
living Person upon him, and in him. 

Sir Monier Williams, a great authority on Oriental 
religions, says that the consciousness of personal 
union with God in Christ is the unique and dis- 
tinctive feature of the Christian religion, and that 
there is no trace of it in any other Oriental faith. 
Observe carefully that the Christian consciousness is 
not an inference from experience, but it is given 
H 


98 


ESSENTIAL CHRISTIANITY. 


in experience. Hence there is no room for errone- 
ous deductions. It is a direct and immediate con- 
sciousness, and this consciousness is obviously and 
absolutely independent of the results of scientific and 
historical investigation. Here all true Christians 
agree, Mr. Spurgeon and Cardinal Manning, General 
Booth and Dr. Dale. In the last result every 
Christian is able to say, whatever difficulties, 
perplexities, or embarrassments may harass him, 
“ This one thing I know, that whereas I was blind, 
now I see.” Once the slave of sin, now I am 
spiritually free. 

It is already evident from what I have said, that 
to the intelligent and properly instructed Christian, 
Christianity is Christ. The decisive evidence of my 
Christianity is that I live in Christ. You talk about 
the misconduct of the Church and the inconsistencies 
of Christian men; what have I to do with the 
Church? I am nowhere taught to believe in the 
Church, but I am everywhere taught to believe in 
Christ. You discuss the Bible, and raise all sorts of 
documentary objections and difficulties. Why should 
they embarrass me ? I am nowhere taught that the 
Bible saves me, but I am everywhere taught that 
Christ saves me. I am in His Presence now. No- 
thing that you can say, or discover, or prove about 
the Church or the Bible will affect the essence of 
Christianity. That is why the assaults which infidels 
make upon the Christian religion are so utterly wide 
of the mark. The enemies of Christianity never 


ARGUMENT FOR CHRISTIANITY. 


99 


face Christ. They never can explain away the 
actual conscious experience of true Christians. 

Of course, it is still open for the doubter to 
say that he does not possess the consciousness I 
enjoy and that he cannot be expected to act upon 
my consciousness. That is quite true, and while 
the evidence I now adduce is finally satisfactory 
for me, it is obviously not finally satisfactory for 
him. But I think it ought so far to influence him 
as to lead him to contemplate with all seriousness 
the claims of Christ. If I or a mere handful of 
obscure men made this statement about Christ, the 
anti-Christian might disdain to notice us. But as 
multitudes of the wisest and best of our race have 
been saying the same thing for two thousand years, 
the sceptic ought at least, with all humility, sobriety, 
and intensity, to look into the face of Christ. Is it 
not conceivable that he also, if he is willing, may 
see there what we have seen ? 

Bemember that what really satisfies you is not 
mere logical argument. You are not simply a think- 
ing machine like Babbage’s calculating apparatus. 
You have a heart as well as a brain ; you have a 
conscience as well as a heart ; you are influenced by 
love as well as by thought ; you are influenced by 
righteousness as well as by love ; you are influenced 
by the beautiful and the good as well as by the true ; 
the evidence is moral as well as intellectual. Open 
your min ds without prejudice and without reserve to 
the totality of the evidence which streams upon you 

L.oFC. 


100 


ESSENTIAL CHRISTIANITY. 


from the face of Christ. No man was ever argued 
either into Christianity or out of Christianity. Christ 
Himself has always said that we are not convinced 
by mere ratiocination, which is only a fragment of 
that which really influences us, but by the deeper 
impression which His personal presence produces 
upon every honest man. Listen to His own august 
words : “ Every one that is of the truth heareth my 
voice ” (St. John xviii. 37) ; “He that is of Cod 
heareth the words of God ” (St. J ohn viii. 47) ; “ My 
sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they 
follow me ” (St. John x. 27) ; “ We are of God : he 
that knoweth God heareth us ” (1 John iv. 6). You 
will remember how Browning, in “ The Death in 
the Desert,” and “ The Arab Physician,” expounds 
vividly and overwhelmingly the great fact that we 
are convinced of the claims of Christ by Christ 
Himself, not by mere abstract and logical considera- 
tions, but by the many-sided influence of all that 
He is, that He says, and that He does. 

Buskin says somewhere that a painting by Titian 
is so unique that any one who is acquainted with his 
style, on seeing a painting by that great artist says 
at once, “ This is Titian.” He does not need to argue. 
There is something in the total impression which 
differentiates it from the production of every other 
painter. And he who has a moral sense which is not 
stunted, or gagged, or blinded, he who allows his 
better self to look into the face of Christ, will 
realise that He is indeed “the revelation of God.” 


ARGUMENT FOR CHRISTIANITY. 


101 


When you have once seen the sun shining in the 
heavens you do not need any one to persuade you 
by argument that you are not looking at a star or 
at the moon: the sun is self-evident. And when 
we have lifted up our eyes to contemplate the 
Sun of Eighteousness in the heaven of the universe 
we shall need no one to persuade us that He is 
indeed the Sun. He is self-evident. If you are 
self-indulgent, or self-sufficient, or self-righteous, you 
may argue for ever with any one who is willing to 
waste your time and his own. But if your ears are 
open to receive the True, if your heart is ready to be 
impressed by the Beautiful, if your conscience is 
willing to realise the Good, when you have the 
opportunity of looking at Jesus of Nazareth face to 
face, your whole being will cry out : 


“ Thou, 0 Christ, art all I want.” 



THE REAL CHRISTIAN 


“ If any man loveth not the Lord, let him be anathema. 1 
L Cor. xvi. 22. 


THE REAL CHRISTIAN. 

NLESS men were accustomed to read their Bibles 



vJ mechanically and without reflection, this text 
would take their breath away. St. Paul has closed 
his letter as usual with a series of thoughtful and 
gracious salutations, and a number of characteristic- 
ally affectionate messages. This letter, like others, 
is apparently written by an amanuensis. When his 
secretary has finished it, St. Paul takes the pen into 
his own hand, and in his well-known large, round 
handwriting adds a few words himself : “ The saluta- 
tion of me, Paul, with mine own hand” (v. 21). 
Then suddenly, unexpectedly, without any apparent 
cause or warning, he bursts forth into the fiery 
words which form the text. 

Why this fierce outcry? why this terrible de- 
nunciation ? “ If any man loveth not the Lord, 

let him be anathema.” Let him be “devoted” to 
the Lord for divine reprobation and repudiation. 
Let him be placed under a ban. Let him be 
solemnly put out of the Christian Church. What 


106 


ESSENTIAL CHRISTIANITY. 


an extraordinary prayer ! How amazing it is 
that such words should come from the mind, and 
heart, and pen of the sensitive and tender-hearted 
Apostle of the Gentiles who acknowledged himself 
“ a debtor to all men.” Again, I ask, what is the 
explanation of these terrible words? Why did he 
add them suddenly and with awful solemnity at 
the very end of his letter ? There is only one 
possible answer. It was because his whole soul 
raged and revolted at the bare idea of any one 
daring to call himself a “ Christian ” who did 
not really and personally love Jesus Christ, the 
living Saviour. 

The great Church at Corinth had now been estab- 
lished for some time. It had been in existence long 
enough to exhibit some of the features which appear 
in all old and settled communities of Christians. 
There were not a few persons who desired to enrol 
themselves as members of the Corinthian Church for 
other than the highest and best reason. There were 
some who admired the austere virtues of the primi- 
tive Christians. Bead Archdeacon Farrar’s remark- 
able work, “ From Darkness to Dawn.” Thrown into 
the form of fiction, it is still literally true. Every 
statement is founded upon fact, and can be estab- 
lished by reference to ancient documents. Nothing 
in that remarkable volume is more striking than the 
contrast between the purity of the Christians and 
the almost inconceivable and quite unspeakable 
moral degradation of Boman society. Truth, chastity, 


THE REAL CHRISTIAN. 


10 ? 


tenderness, have fortunately immense fascination for 
mankind, and we can quite understand that some of 
the better sort of Corinthian citizens would long to 
escape from the frivolous and proverbially corrupt 
society of that city into the pure, genial, and loving 
circles of the Corinthian Church. 

Others had family or friendly ties with the 
Christians, and would wish to be associated with 
them on domestic and human rather than divine 
grounds. Others, again, would he attracted by 
the service, and by the hearty congregational sing- 
ing which is a striking feature of the living 
Christian Church everywhere. There is no singing 
in the world and there never has been, like the 
singing of happy Christians. Moreover, there were, 
doubtless, a great many who wished to join the 
Christian Church because they had good intentions 
and excellent purposes. They sincerely desired to 
live true and noble lives, although they had not yet 
realised personal salvation and conscious fellowship 
with Christ. “ Let all such persons,” exclaimed St. 
Paul, “ be anathema.” Let them be solemnly and 
conspicuously placed outside the Christian Church. 
They may be regarded as candidates for Church 
membership, or catechumens in the outer vestibule of 
the sanctuary. But while heartily recognising the 
sincerity and good intentions of many of them and giv- 
ing them every help and encouragement, let it never 
for one moment be supposed that they are fully 
accredited members of the Christian Church, or are 


108 


ESSENTIAL CHRISTIANITY. 


entitled as yet to take upon themselves the great 
and august name of “ Christian.” 

St. Paul refuses absolutely, and in the most 
vehement terms, to recognise any human being 
as in the full scriptural sense a “ Christian,” unless 
and until he really loves the Lord Jesus Christ. 
No one was more anxious than the Apostle Paul 
to recognise, to cherish, and to cultivate the ger- 
minal and embryonic manifestations of divine grace 
in every human heart. We must not suppose 
him to mean that those whom he anathematized, or 
placed under a ban, or excluded from the full privi- 
leges of the Christian Church, were necessarily hypo- 
crites or abandoned wretches. Many of them were 
amiable, well-meaning, and not far from the kingdom 
of heaven. We may be quite sure that they would 
receive every courtesy and consideration at his hands. 
He would encourage all that was good in them. He 
would rejoice with all his heart over every evidence 
of the influence of the Spirit of Christ in their souls. 
But he would peremptorily refuse to recognise them 
as entitled to identify themselves with real Chris- 
tians. No one was a real Christian who did not love 
the Lord Jesus Christ. It was absolutely necessary 
to draw the line there. 

To the thoughtless and the foolish it might seem 
harsh, narrow, bigoted, to do that ; but truth is of 
immeasurably greater value than sentiment, and 
there is no real kindness in ignoring facts or deny- 
ing them. It would be an incalculable injury to 


THE REAL CHRISTIAN. 


109 


those persons themselves to allow them to cherish 
the awful delusion that it is possible to be a Chris- 
tian without loving Christ, or that there can be 
any real membership in the Christian Church unless 
we live in conscious fellowship with our Divine 
Saviour. To call yourself “ a Christian ” because you 
accept the ethical ideas of Christianity, or because 
your family or your friends are Christians, or because 
you like the services of the Christian Church, or 
because you have good intentions, and hope some 
day or other to he a Christian — is a terrible, and 
may ultimately prove a fatal, mistake. At all hazard, 
it was necessary to deliver the citizens of Corinth 
from that easy and plausible delusion. We can 
imagine the startling and terrific effect which St. 
Paul’s sudden explosion would produce upon the 
great congregation of the Corinthian Church when 
the letter was read. Every man would instantly 
begin to search his own heart to discover whether he 
really did love the Lord Jesus Christ or not ; and if 
upon an honest analysis of himself he discovered 
that he was making a profession of Christianity 
on human or social grounds, and not because the 
love of Christ constrained him, he would know 
that his profession was no benefit either to himself or 
to others, but on the contrary a delusion and a snare. 

The line of demarcation between the Church and 
the world has been so much effaced by ages of world- 
liness and superstition that the strong language of 
St. Paul will shock and irritate many. But the con- 


110 


ESSENTIAL CHRISTIANITY. 


duct of the great apostle in adding this terrific post- 
script to his letter may be wholly vindicated by the 
example of his greater Master. What, for example, 
could be more unmistakable or more terrible than 
the language used by the Son of God even in the 
sermon with which He inaugurated His ministry: 
“ Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, did 
not we prophesy by Thy name, and by Thy name 
cast out devils, and by Thy name do many mighty 
works ? And then will I profess unto them, I never 
knew you ” (St. Matt. vii. 22, 23). That is to say, 
whatever men may have done, whatever service 
they may have rendered, however approvingly they 
may have spoken of Christ, if they have never en- 
joyed personal communion with Him, if they have 
never loved Him, if they have never, in the true 
sense, “ known ” Him, they cannot claim to be His 
disciples, or members of His Church, or joint-heirs 
with Him. 

Ho man can he recognised as a fully accredited 
member of the Christian Church unless and until 
he loves Jesus Christ. Christ Himself was unable 
to establish the Christian Church until there was 
one man on earth, Simon Peter, who could make 
the great confession ; who did recognise Him as 
the divine and personal Saviour ; who “ knew ” 
Him; and who responded to His love. Then the 
Christian Church was founded in the person of that 
first convert. The greatest calamity that has ever 
befallen Christianity is the practical forgetfulness of 


THE REAL CHRISTIAN. 


Ill 


this great line of demarcation between those who are 
“ Christian ” and those who are not. The ancient 
discipline of the Christian Church has disappeared 
under the influence of a false and mistaken charity. 
This, let me add, is not a question of personal salva- 
tion. It is a question of calling everything by its 
right name. The tender mercy of God is over all 
His works. “ In every nation he that feareth Him 
and worketh righteousness is acceptable to Him ” 
(Acts x. 35) ; and “ many shall come from the 
east and the west and shall sit down in the king- 
dom of heaven” (St. Matt. viii. 11). But while 
that is perfectly true, no human being is entitled 
to profess and call himself “ a Christian ” unless 
he loves the Lord Jesus Christ. But this has been 
so far forgotten that, to the incalculable injury, both 
of the Christian Church and of mankind, multitudes 
of persons have come to call themselves Christians 
who are no more Christian than Buddha or Socrates 
was a Christian. 

When we exclude such men from the Christian 
Church we do not exclude them from heaven. 
We do not put them outside the pale of divine 
mercy. We pronounce no judgment whatever with 
respect either to their present condition or to 
their future lot. When we say that Buddha was 
not a Christian we do not condemn Buddha to hell. 
When we say that Socrates was not a Christian we 
are not consigning him to the outer darkness where 
there is the weeping and the gnashing of teeth. We 


112 


ESSENTIAL CHRISTIANITY. 


are not raising any question about personal safety 
We are simply making a plain and obvious state- 
ment, the truth of which no one denies. The time 
has more than come when Christian teachers should 
frankly recognise the fact that there are multitudes 
of persons who, in a vague way, and for various 
reasons, such as those I have suggested in the case of 
the Corinthian Church, call themselves Christians 
who never have been Christians, and who are not 
Christians to-day. 

When a discussion took place some time ago 
in the columns of the Daily Chronicle on “ Is 
Christianity Played Out ? ” the most significant and 
memorable feature of that controversy was the fact 
that a number of upright, honest, and sincere persons 
came forward to defend Christianity under the delu- 
sion that they themselves were Christian, although 
they made a number of ingenuous statements which 
clearly showed that they were no more Christians than 
Confucius or Zoroaster was a Christian. They were 
moral, they were upright, they had noble aspirations, 
they accepted the ethical ideal of Christianity so far 
as they understood it ; but they were not Christians. 
No one is a Christian who does not love the Lord 
Jesus Christ ; and no one can properly love the Lord 
Jesus Christ who does not enjoy conscious, personal 
fellowship and intercourse with Him. Yet so 
strangely has the name Christian been perverted 
that many persons calmly claim it for themselves 
even when they regard Christ as nothing more than a 


THE REAL CHRISTIAN. 


113 


beautiful myth ! I do not for a moment say that 
this is wholly or mainly their own fault. We Chris- 
tians have behaved so badly, have been so inconsis- 
tent, have had so little of the mind of Christ, have 
quarrelled so much with one another, have so fear- 
fully perverted and misrepresented the Scriptures, 
that it is not surprising men should misuse the 
Christian naipe. 

Nothing is more significant to those who care- 
fully watch human society than the calm uncon- 
sciousness with which a number of high-minded 
and honourable agnostics talk about the days when 
they were Christian, and imagine that they are in 
a position to speak authoritatively about the claims 
of Christianity because, as they fancy, they have 
seen both sides of the question. But, as a matter of 
fact, they do not know what Christianity is. They 
were brought up in an atmosphere of traditional 
ideas, and they passively accepted certain doctrines 
which were current in the Christian Church or in 
European society, but they have never loved the 
Lord Jesus Christ in the sense in which St. Paul 
loved Him. They have never been able to say, as he 
said, “ The love of Christ constraineth me,” and “ I 
live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me.” Conse- 
quently, they are under a complete although uncon- 
scious delusion upon this subject. The Christianity 
which infidels and agnostics criticise and attack is 
not the Christianity of Christ or the Christianity of 
St. Paul. They are on the wrong track altogether ; 

I 


114 


ESSENTIAL CHRISTIANITY. 


they are attacking a name, not a reality. Jesus 
Christ and His true disciples have no interest what- 
ever in the mere theory or profession which they 
denounce, and their arguments are wholly wide of 
the mark. 

Hot one of them has ever come within sight or 
gun-shot of Essential Christianity. The whole con- 
troversy between Christians and non-Christians is 
based upon a false or mistaken issue. It is a misap- 
prehension — a gigantic delusion. There is no con- 
troversy in which it is so necessary to define terms. 
The whole of the attacks upon Christianity are 
irrelevant and useless. Hot one of them ever raises 
the main issue, not one of the opponents of Christi- 
anity gives any indication that he knows what 
Christianity is. If we could only induce men before 
they argue and before they write, to define a 
Christian man, there would be an end of controversy. 
A Christian man is one who lives in affectionate daily 
intimacy with a risen and divine Christ. The mere 
fact that any human being professes and calls him- 
self a Christian proves nothing. He may be under a 
complete delusion, as many are, with respect to the 
essence of Christianity. I make no reflection upon 
them, for the Christian Church has so perverted the 
meaning of Scriptural terms that there is ample 
excuse for gigantic mistakes on the part of outsiders. 

But in the light of the plain text before us, we at 
any rate cannot deny that the Apostle Paul per- 
emptorily and indignantly declines to recognise as 


THE REAL CHRISTIAN. 


115 


his “ Christian ” brother any man who does not love 
the Lord Jesus Christ ; who has not an emotion of 
real personal affection to the living Saviour whom he 
knows, not in theory or in imagination, but in fact. 
It is admitted that such knowledge is supernatural, 
and cannot be attained by the unaided efforts of our 
own faculties. But that has been asserted in the 
plainest terms from the beginning. When the first 
Christian in human history made his great confession 
of Christ, Christ immediately responded, “ Blessed 
art thou, Simon Bar-Jona : for flesh and blood hath 
not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is 
in heaven ” (St. Matt. xvii. 17). Every Christian is 
a supernatural “new creation” of God (2 Cor. v. 17). 
Man by searching cannot find out God. To man 
with his natural unaided faculties God is the un- 
searchable, the unattainable, the unknown, and the 
unknowable. But God by His Spirit reveals Him- 
self to us. If we welcome the light which shines 
from the face of Christ, if we yield to the impulses 
which the Holy Spirit generates in our hearts, 
we come to “ know ” God in Christ, and when we 
know Him we cannot help loving Him. There is 
that in our nature, however corrupt, which inevitably 
responds to such lovableness as we see in Christ. 
“We love Him because He first loved us.” 

We, I say, cannot help loving Him. But before we 
love Christ we must “ know M Him ; and before we 
know Him we must repent, we must acknowledge 
our need of divine mercy, we must admit our natural 


116 


ESSENTIAL CHRISTIANITY. 


tendency to evil, we must confess the actual sins 
which we have committed, we must so far as in us 
lies make restitution to man for any wrong we have 
done him ; and then we must accept Christ, trust 
Christ, obey Christ, and imitate Christ. When we 
are disposed thus to welcome divine light, and to 
obey our conscience, gradually or suddenly Christ 
becomes directly known to us as our own personal 
Saviour and Friend. We are unfit to do the 
work of Christ until we are impelled to obedience 
by His recognised and reciprocated love. Before 
Christ commissioned St. Peter to feed either His 
sheep or His lambs, He asked him in the most 
direct and solemn terms whether he loved Him. 
“ Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me ? ” That 
is the question which Christ addresses to every 
one of us now as the sine qud non both of personal 
Christianity and of Christian service. Those, and 
those only are " Christian,” who, looking into the 
face of Him to whom all hearts are open, and all 
desires known, and from whom no secret thing is 
hid, can intelligently, heartily, and deliberately 
answer, “Lord, Thou knowest all things; Thou 
knowest that I love Thee ” (St. John xxi. 17). 


THE CHRISTIAN REVOLUTION. 


• 1 am debtor both to Greeks and to Barbarians, both to the 
vrise and to the fooli8h.’ , — Romans i. 14. 


THE CHRISTIAN REVOLUTION. 

I T is difficult for us to realise the revolutionary sig- 
nificance of these words — so difficult that, although 
eighteen centuries have passed since they were 
written, we not only do not yet believe them, we do 
not even understand them. If understood and prac- 
tised they would solve all our political problems, heal 
all our social woes, and establish the millennium of 
justice and peace. What does St. Paul say ? He 
wishes to explain to the Christians of Rome why he 
had desired for a long time to visit them. He had 
never been there before. They were of a different 
race. They had apparently no claim whatever upon 
a Hebrew stranger. Yet he had longed to face all 
the perils both of sea and land, to undertake a long, 
arduous, and costly journey, in order that he might, 
to the best of his ability, minister to their welfare. 
Why? 

He gives an astounding and unprecedented answer. 
He says it is because he deems himself to be under 
an imperative obligation to do his utmost to promote 


120 


ESSENTIAL CHRISTIANITY. 


the happiness of all men, both Greeks and Bar- 
barians, both civilised and uncivilised. Greek was 
at that time the language of the civilised world. 
The culture of the Romans themselves was Greek. 
Educated men everywhere read and spoke Greek, 
as at a later period they read and spoke Latin. 
Moreover the common people as well as the edu- 
cated classes understood Greek. Outside the pale of 
Greek civilisation were those whom the insolence 
of Greek culture designated Barbarians. The two 
classes, therefore, whom St. Paul names, represented 
in the phraseology of the time the entire human 
race. He felt himself under a direct personal obliga- 
tion to serve all classes, the rich as well as the poor, 
the educated as well as the ignorant. 

It is well to emphasise that fact, as in the present 
day earnest and tender-hearted men are in some 
danger of excluding both the rich and the educated 
from the range of their practical sympathy. They 
are so keenly alive to the wrongs and sufferings of the 
poor that they lavish almost exclusively upon them 
their sympathies, their thoughts, and their efforts. 
But we must remember that the rich also have 
claims upon us, and in some respects very special 
claims indeed. Their position is one of the gravest 
peril. Our Lord Himself has declared that it is 
almost impossible for a rich man to be saved. 
Although the servility of ecclesiastical Christianity 
has ignored or explained away the terrible utter- 
ances of our Lord, they remain to impress Scriptural 


THE CHRISTIAN REVOLUTION. 


121 


Christians with the unique and awful peril of the 
wealthy. They are exposed to many temptations 
which never trouble the poor, and as a matter of fact 
the wealthiest classes of English society are at this 
moment the most immoral and the most miserable. 
There are many delightful exceptions. Such men as 
the late Lord Shaftesbury and the late Lord Cairns 
amply proved that representatives both of our most 
ancient and of our most modern aristocracy, may be 
among the most devout and the most Christian of 
mankind. There can be no question that when 
wealth, rank, leisure, and influence are thus associ- 
ated with intense devotion to Christ, such men are 
the true “ aristocracy ” of the country. But no one 
who knows London can deny that there is more vice 
west of Temple Bar than east of Temple Bar. The 
centres of West End pleasure are much more cor- 
rupt and degraded than places of amusement in the 
East End. The spiritual needs of the privileged 
classes are greater and more awful than the needs of 
any other section of the community. 

In the same way the educated ought to be the 
objects of Christian compassion and effort, quite as 
much as those who are uneducated. There is a great 
deal in the influence of modern culture which tends 
to destroy the hopes and blight the lives of young 
men and young women. Many of the most highly 
educated of our time are miserable and hopeless. 
Hone need the consolations and the ennobling en- 
lightenment of the true Gospel more than they. St. 


122 


ESSENTIAL CHRISTIANITY. 


Paul recognises his direct obligation to every class of 
the community. It was his duty to do what he 
could for all. 

This astounding declaration is made quite quietly 
as though it were not absolutely unprecedented, and 
almost incomprehensible. It becomes yet more 
amazing when we realise who made it — St. Paul. 
By birth and training he was a proud, bitter, in- 
tolerant Jew. We know how the Chinese have long 
hated and despised their fellow men. The anti- 
pathy of the Chinese to those whom they describe 
as “ foreign devils,” should give us some conception 
of the attitude of the Jews in relation to the rest of 
mankind. Regarding themselves as the chosen 
people of God, they hated all men, and all men 
cordially reciprocated their hatred. Yet here is a 
Hebrew of the Hebrews who says, “ I am debtor 
both to the Greeks and to the Barbarians, both to 
the wise and to the foolish." This is a perfectly new 
conception of life. It teaches that we are not here 
to please ourselves, to look after number one, to get 
what we can in the general scramble, but to find our 
own happiness in promoting the happiness of others. 
The maxim of the World is, “ Every man for himself, 
and the devil take the hindmost.” The maxim of St. 
Paul is the diametrical opposite. 

I was much impressed by the casual remark of a 
costermonger during the Whitechapel scare. When 
the reporter of a London newspaper was examining one 
of the spots where those unhappy women had been 


THE CHRISTIAN REVOLUTION. 


123 


murdered, he expressed surprise that the murderer 
should have escaped, when the scene of the murder 
was in the midst of a crowded neighbourhood, and 
where it seemed almost inevitable that someone or 
other should hear the screams, or witness the struggle. 
A costermonger standing by explained the situation 
by calmly saying, * It’s every one for hisself down 
here.” That is to say, in that neighbourhood every- 
body was so preoccupied with his own personal and 
selfish interests, that no one would trouble himself to 
listen to the scream of a woman, or to notice a 
struggle going on almost under his very eyes. That 
sentiment is not peculiar to Whitechapel. It has 
many adherents in the City, in the West End, and 
everywhere else. Indeed, our orthodox Political 
Economy, which is now being so justly and so greatly 
discredited and despised, is founded upon the insane 
idea that the ultimate motive of human conduct is 
“enlightened self-interest.” Satan was the first 
professor of that dismal doctrine. In the prologue of 
the great drama of Job he informed God that 
“enlightened self-interest” was the dominating 
motive of the life of Job, and that hook was written 
to prove how detestable and how mendacious that 
theory of human life is. 

Here, at any rate, we have the opposite theory 
asserted by St. Paul as an elementary axiom of 
Christian ethics. He states it in the simplest, and 
therefore in the most impressive terms, “ I am a 
debtor to all men,” that is to say I am under an 


124 


ESSENTIAL CHRISTIANITY. 


obligation to serve all men. That is my duty. It is 
not merely my privilege. I owe every man a “ debt ” 
of service. It is as much a matter of plain duty, of 
ordinary honesty to do my utmost for every man, as 
it is to pay twenty shillings in the pound ! I must 
never ask why should I help such an one. Merely 
to ask that question is to abandon Christianity, is to 
assume an anti-Christian attitude. It is morally im- 
possible for any properly instructed Christian to ask 
that question ; as impossible as it would be for any 
honest man to ask why he should pay twenty shillings 
in the pound, why he should discharge his lawful 
debts. We are bound to help every man to the 
utmost of our ability and opportunity. The oppor- 
tunity of service constitutes the obligation of service. 
The divine logic is very different from the logic 
of the Schools. It runs thus, “ I can help, ergo I 
ought to help.” The conclusive claim of our fellow- 
men to our service is their need and our capacity to 
serve them. 

This was very clearly taught in the parable of 
the Good Samaritan. The ecclesiastical lawyer 
asked, “ Who is my neighbour ? ” Christ repudiated 
that form of the question, because it assumed that 
some men were not his neighbours, and that the 
obligations of service were limited to a particular 
class. The question became totally different when 
repeated by our Lord at the end of the parable. It 
assumed this essentially altered form, “ Which proved 
neighbour unto him that fell among the robbers ? ” 


THE CHRISTIAN REVOLUTION. 


125 


(St. Luke x. 36). To ask “ Who is my neighbour ? ” 
is obviously to assume that some men are not my 
neighbours. Whereas the only question a Christian 
dare ask is, “ How shall I best discharge the admitted 
duty which I owe to every man ? ” The question in 
the form in which our Lord asked it, indicated an 
attitude of mind totally different from the lawyer’s 
who propounded the question, and totally different 
from that of most men who reject the authority 
of Christ. Emerson, for example, with all his 
nobility of sentiment, indignantly denies that those 
who “do not belong to * him have any claim 
whatever upon his sympathy and charity. He 
declares that those who do belong to him are en- 
titled to all that he can do for them. He is willing, 
if necessary, to go to prison for them, but others have 
no such claim ; have no claim at all* How totally 
different is this from the obligation which St. Paul 
acknowledged in relation to every human being. 

What I have already said with respect to the 


* “ Do not tell me, as a good man did to-day, of my obligation 
to put all poor men in good situations. Are they my poor ? I tell 
thee, thou foolish philanthropist, that I grudge the dollar, the 
dime, the cent, I give to such men as do not belong to me and to 
whom I do not belong. There is a class of persons to whom by 
all spiritual affinity I am bought and sold ; for them I will go to 
prison, if need be ; but your miscellaneous popular charities ; the 
education at college of fools ; the building of meeting houses to the 
vain end to which many now stand ; alms to sots ; and the 
thousandfold relief societies ; — though I confess with shame I 
sometimes succumb and give the dollar, it is a wicked dollar 
which by-and-by I shall have the manhood to withhold.” 

Emerson, Essay on Self-Reliance. 


126 


ESSENTIAL CHRISTIANITY. 


parable of the Good Samaritan indicates that St. 
Paul learnt his revolutionary ethic from his great 
Master. There are two recorded utterances of our 
Lord which have been strangely overlooked, but 
which teach in the most startling terms how the 
ethical conceptions of Christ differ from those of all 
who ever came before Him, and even from the 
ethical conceptions which are still current in the 
Christian Church. When His disciples yielded to 
the impulses of human ambition, and began to con- 
tend among themselves which should be accounted 
greater, our Lord used the following remarkable and 
searching words : “ The kings of the Gentiles have 
lordship over them ; and they that have authority 
over them are called Benefactors ; but ye shall not 
be so” (St. Luke xxii. 25). With that one short 
sentence — “ye shall not be so” — he condemns the 
rulers of men and utterly reverses the verdict 
recorded by the flatterers, parasites, and sycophants 
who have for the most part written what is called 
human “history,” and who have applauded to the 
skies the very men whose example the true disciples 
of Christ are emphatically prohibited from following. 
You will notice the awful irony with which our Lord 
directs attention to the fact that degraded and ser- 
vile men had been in the habit of calling their 
tyrants “ Benefactors.” Having dismissed with one 
indignant sentence the false conceptions of greatness 
which had hitherto prevailed, the Great Master 
proceeds : “ He that is the greater among you, let 


THE CHRISTIAN REVOLUTION. 127 

him become as the younger ; and he that is chief, 
as he that doth serve ” (v. 26 ). 

True greatness in the vocabulary of Christ is de- 
termined not by the extent to which we “ lord it 
over ” other men or “ exercise authority ” over 
them, but by the extent that we “ serve ” other 
men and live not for personal or family aggrand- 
isement, but for the public good. Some years ago 
Mrs. Josephine Butler, at a great meeting in Exeter 
Hall, called attention to the disagreeable and omi- 
nous fact that those who carried on the political 
business of the country were no longer called, 
as in the days of her youth, “ the Ministry,” but 
had usurped the title of “the Government.” This 
is a very unfortunate change. “ The Ministry ” is 
a much nobler name from the Christian stand-point. 
A tyrant or a scoundrel can “ govern ” for a time 
by the use of force, but only a true patriot and a 
good man can be a “ Minister,” a servant of the 
people. It is a pity we have almost ceased to call 
the Cabinet the Ministry. It would be well that 
even the very name they bear should remind them 
and all men that they are there not to “ govern ” but 
to “ serve,” that they are not the masters but the 
servants of the people. Fortunately the old, noble, 
and Scriptural name is still reserved for the greatest 
of them all. He is still called “ the Prime Minister,” 
that is, the chief servant, and this is the highest title 
of honour. It is immeasurably greater and more 
divine to “ serve ” than to “ govern.” Long may that 


128 


ESSENTIAL CHRISTIANITY. 


great name remain, and long may the chief of each 
succeeding group of statesmen responsible for the 
government of the empire, be known as “ the Prime 
Minister ! ” 

There is another passage in which Christ teaches 
the same great truth. When the sons of Zebedee 
made their ambitious and audacious request, and 
when the other disciples were indignant, proving by 
their very indignation that they were equally am- 
bitious, Jesus called them to Him, and said, in 
language such as was never used before, and such 
as few Christian ministers dare to use even now, so 
diametrically opposed is it to current sentiment : 
“Ye know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it 
over them, and their great ones exercise authority 
over them” (St. Matt. xx. 25). What strange 
language this is ! Christ accused the rulers of 
men of “ lording it ” over them, and “ exercising 
authority ” over them. Then He added, “ Not so shall 
it be among you ” (v. 26). He utterly repudiated the 
principles and the practices of all the governments 
that ever preceded His. He despised the methods 
and arts by which the kingdoms of this world had 
been built up and buttressed. “ Not so shall it be 
among you : but whosoever would become great 
among you shall be your servant; and whosoever 
would be first among you shall be your slave : even 
as the Son of Man came not to be ministered unto, 
but to minister, and to give His life a ransom for 
many ” (v. 26). 


THE CHRISTIAN REVOLUTION. 


129 


When the King of kings came into this world 
He had no men-servants and no women-servants, 
no chamberlains, no gold-sticks-in-waiting, no silver- 
sticks-in-waiting, no policemen, and no soldiers. 
He had not one single servant ! I say nothing 
in disparagement of the ceremonial and ritual of 
earthly courts. But how could the august Lord 
of all so impressively teach us in any other way, 
that true greatness and real kingliness are deter- 
mined not by the number who serve us, but by the 
number whom we serve ? Every human being’s 
position in the social hierarchy of heaven will be 
determined, not by the number he has “ lorded 
it ” over or commanded by brute force, but by 
the number whom he has served. All this is so 
new, so startling, so revolutionary, that it is difficult 
for any ordinary man even to understand it; and 
when he does understand it he will probably be 
greatly irritated by it, and will try to explain it 
away; so servile has sin made the human race, so 
utterly anti-Christian are many of the sentiments 
still deliberately propagated even in communities 
that have the audacity to call themselves Christian. 

St. Paul, however, had the mind of Christ. He 
fully understood what these startling words meant, 
and he did not hesitate to admit deliberately and in 
writing, that he was “ a debtor ” to “ all ” men ; that 
all men had claims upon him ; that he was not here 
to please himself or to advance his own interests, but 
to do his utmost, to the full extent of his influence, 
K 


130 


ESSENTIAL CHRISTIANITY. 


to serve every man. And who can forecast the 
result when St. Paul’s principle of conduct is ac- 
cepted ? Well did Benjamin Franklin say, that 
“ Whoever introduces into public affairs the prin- 
ciples of Primitive Christianity will change the face 
of the world.” When the ethical teaching of Christ 
is accepted it will effect such a revolution as human 
history has never witnessed. Why did the French 
Eevolution fail ? Because it was based upon the 
Rights of men. The Christian Revolution is based 
upon the Duties of men, and every enlightened 
Christian accepting the intensely and sublimely 
practical teaching of St. Paul will agree with Maz- 
zini in the noble declaration that “ the sole origin of 
every right is in a duty fulfilled.” 

If the authors of the French Revolution had 
cared mainly for the “ duties ” of men, their great 
movement, which at first excited so much hope, 
would not have ended in a Reign of Terror and 
in a century of unrest and bloodshed. The ultimate 
source of all misery is egotism. Some forms of 
Atheistic Socialism say, in fact, “All thine is mine.” 
That is a selfish, a devilish, a suicidal creed. Chris- 
tianity says, “ All mine is thine.” That is the 
only creed which will heal the social woes of men. 
When the ethical teaching of St. Paul is generally 
accepted, the problem of the unemployed will be 
solved, our terrible industrial strife will be over, 
and the ruinous armed peace of Europe will pass 
away like a loathsome dream of the night. We 


THE CHRISTIAN REVOLUTION. 


131 


are all debtors to all our fellow-men. Whatever 
I have I am under a sacred obligation to use for 
the happiness and welfare of others. I may be able 
to do very little, but let me do that little. 

There is a short poem of Matthew Arnold’s in 
which he immortalises the kindliness of Labour. He 
watched a starving woman who made no applica- 
tion for help to the rich as they passed gaily by 5 
but she appealed, not in vain, to working men 
returning from their toil. Those who live among 
the poor know how touchingly and divinely kind 
they are to one another ; what endless trouble 
many a struggling half-starved woman takes to 
help some other neighbour in greater distress than 
herself. Last year, during the Self-Denial Week 
of the Salvation Army, even the homeless tramps 
in the shelters sacrificed some of their meals so 
as to contribute the sum of £70 to the good 
object. There is a better self in every man, if you 
appeal to that. Human nature is not so hopelessly 
selfish as the superficial and the cynical imagine. 
Men are capable of rising to the standard of conduct 
which St. Paul depicted. 

Instead of teaching men that they must be selfish, 
and urging them to be selfish, let us appeal to that 
sense of universal duty which the Spirit of God has 
created in every heart, however completely it may be 
overlaid for a time by the base devices of the world, 
of the flesh, or of the devil. If we all felt our 
obligation to one another, if we unhesitatingly ac- 


132 


ESSENTIAL CHRISTIANITY. 


cepted the teaching of St. Paul, how little misery 
there would be on earth ! Nine-tenths of our suffer- 
ings are wholly unnecessary, being self-inflicted or 
socially inflicted. Even now, notwithstanding the 
inevitability of death, this world might be a scene of 
long and great delight if we gave up being selfish. 
Selfishness is always suicidal. It is a fatal delusion 
to suppose that it brings real or lasting happiness to 
ourselves. St. Paul was one of the happiest men of 
his time although he suffered so much, or rather 
because he suffered so much for the well-being of 
others. On the other hand, the Emperor Tiberius 
in that same period of human history, surrounded 
by all the unparalleled luxuries and delights of 
his palace on the lovely island of Caprese, wrote 
to the Senate that he was, of all men living, 
the most miserable. The life which St. Paul sets 
before us is the only true life. For the unsaved, 
the un-Christian, it is an impossible life. The Spirit 
of Christ alone can enable any man to live such a 
life. St. Paul was able to carry out his unprece- 
dented and revolutionary conception of Duty because 
he was able to say, “ I live, and yet no longer I, but 
Christ liveth in me ” (Gal. ii. 20). Let us submit to 
Christ. Let us open our hearts to all the influences 
of Christ. Let us permit His Spirit to change our 
nature until it becomes Christ-like. Then, walking 
in His footsteps, imitating His example, going about 
doing good, we shall discover that, seeking the hap- 
piness of others, we have achieved our own. 


THE NEW COVENANT. 


“ This cup is the new covenant in my blood, even that which is 
poured out for you.’* — Luke xxii 20. 


THE NEW COVENANT. 

H OW often have I recited these words ! How 
often have yon read them and heard them ! 
Have you ever understood them ? What does Christ 
mean by “ the new covenant ” ? He was exceedingly 
careful and conscientious in the use of words. What 
is a covenant ? It was a disastrous mistake on the 
part of the translators of the Authorised Version 
that they deliberately rendered the same Greek word 
by different English words, and they did so appa- 
rently without any attempt to discriminate between 
synonyms. It seems quite an accident which Eng- 
lish word they used. We have an illustration of that 
most misleading practice in the case before us. 
They ought to have chosen either the word “ testa- 
ment ” or the word “ covenant,” and adhered to it. 
The word testament means a will by which men 
dispose of their property after death, which docu- 
ment needs a witness (testis). Thus we speak of a 
man’s “ last will and testament.” The expression 
“ testament ” is used because the death of Jesus 


136 


ESSENTIAL CHRISTIANITY. 


Christ was necessary to make His will valid. But 
“ testament ” means exactly the same thing as “ cove- 
nant,” and it is a great pity that our translators did 
not keep to that one word. The “ Old Testament ” 
and the “ Hew Testament ” mean the two collections 
of books which describe respectively the Old Testa- 
ment or Covenant, and the Hew Testament or Cove- 
nant. 

What does “ covenant ” mean ? It means an 
agreement, a contract, a bargain, a compact. In law 
a “ contract ” is a verbal agreement such as is not 
signed or sealed ; as, for example, the agreement that 
an employer makes with a workman, or that a mis- 
tress makes with a domestic servant. A “ covenant,” 
on the other hand, is an agreement in writing, which 
is signed and sealed, as, for example, the covenants 
of a lease. The word covenant is now generally used 
in relation to religion, to describe any solemn con- 
tract, agreement, or compact which God makes 
with us. We have, for example, our own “ Cove- 
nant Service ” at the beginning of the year. Again, 
covenant is the name given to the oath which is 
connected with the Scotch confession of faith. At a 
critical hour in British history the Scotch people 
made a “ solemn League and Covenant ” to retain the 
reformed faith against the intrigues and cruelties 
of the English Government. 

We now understand covenant in the biblical sense. 
It is a solemn agreement, or contract, or compact 
made between God and man. But what does the 


THE NEW COVENANT. 


137 


Master mean by speaking of the “ New ” Covenant ? 
That implies an old covenant which was to be super- 
seded. The phrase “ New Covenant ” is a very strik- 
ing phrase. To what does He refer ? There seems to 
be little doubt that although our Lord was familiar 
with Hebrew, He generally spoke Greek, and read 
the Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible called the 
Septuagint, so called because it was supposed to have 
been translated by seventy learned Babbis at Alex- 
andria. Moreover, our Lord evidently had His 
favourite books and passages in the Old Testament. 
Now there is a special and most beautiful section of 
the Septuagint in which our Lord’s precise phrase 
occurs — “ the New Covenant.” It is found in that 
wonderful and most inspiring section of the book of 
the prophet Jeremiah, known as “ The Book of Con- 
solation,” which extends from the 30th to the end of 
the 33rd chapter. 

When we learn when, where, and under what 
circumstances Jeremiah wrote that section, the 
reason why our Lord used this particular and strik- 
ing phrase “ New Covenant,” bursts upon us. We 
see in a moment how appropriate it was, and how 
significant. One of the greatest and most instructive 
results of recent Old Testament criticism is the new 
light it throws upon the prophets. In this new light 
Jeremiah has suddenly become one of the noblest 
and one of the most interesting of historic characters. 
His circumstances were strikingly similar to those of 
Jebus Christ himself. Wlien “ The Book of Consola- 


138 


ESSENTIAL CHRISTIANITY. 


tion ” was written, all Jeremiah’s early hopes for the 
reformation of Israel had disappeared. The moral 
reforms effected by Josiah were fleeting and tran- 
sitory ; the Babylonian captivity was inevitable ; 
Nebuchadnezzar was about to destroy the city, the 
Temple, and the separate, independent life of the 
Jews. Precisely the same thing on a vaster scale, 
and with far more enduring results, was about to 
happen in the days of our Lord. The Roman Titus 
was on the point of destroying the second Temple 
and scattering the Jews over the whole world in that 
long exile so immeasurably worse than the Baby- 
lonian captivity, that long exile which has not yet 
come to an end. 

What was the consolation of Jeremiah? It is 
expressed in these glorious and glowing words — 
“ Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, when I 
will make a New Covenant with the house of Israel 
and with the house of Judah : not according to 
the Covenant that I made with their fathers in the 
day that I took them by the hand to bring them out 
of the land of Egypt ; which my Covenant they brake, 
although I was an husband unto them, saith the 
Lord. But this is the Covenant that I will make 
with the house of Israel after those days, saith the 
Lord ; I will put my law in their inward parts, and 
in their heart will I write it ; and I will be their 
God, and they shall be my people : and they shall 
teach no more every man his neighbour, and every 
man his brother, saying, Know the Lord : for they 


THE NEW COVENANT. 


139 


shall all know me, from the least of them unto the 
greatest of them, saith the Lord : for I will forgive 
their iniquity, and their sin will I remember no 
more. Thus saith the Lord, which giveth the 
sun for a light by day, and the ordinances of 
the moon and of the stars for a light by night, 
which stirreth up the sea, that the waves thereof 
roar ; the Lord of Hosts is His name ” (Jer. xxxi. 
31—35). 

That was the great hope, that was the profound 
consolation of Jeremiah. Out of ruin would arise a 
new and a better life. The “ Old Covenant ” — what 
was that? It was the promise made to Abraham, 
and renewed through Moses on Mount Sinai. It was 
the solemn assurance that they should have secure 
and prosperous possession of Palestine so long as they 
kept the Ten Commandments. It was an outward 
obedience to be followed by an earthly reward. But 
the “ Hew Covenant ” — what was that ? It demanded 
not an outw T ard obedience but an inward obedience, 
and it offered not an earthly but an eternal reward. 

The unknown author of the Epistle to the Hebrews 
quotes in the eighth chapter of his epistle the very 
passage I have just quoted. His great object was to 
give the Hebrews of his own day the consolation which 
Jeremiah prophetically anticipated. They were in 
imminent peril of utter despair when their temple 
was burned, their city in ruins, and their race scat- 
tered. But the writer of this most eloquent and 
consolatory epistle reassured them by reminding 


140 


ESSENTIAL CHRISTIANITY. 


them that the “ New Covenant ” was a better and an 
eternal covenant. 

So said Christ with the words of Jeremiah in His 
thoughts and on His lips. His intention was to 
ratify the “ New Covenant,” which was not for 
the Hebrew only, but for all men. The “Old 
Covenant” was passing away for ever. The re- 
ligion of types and shadows, of forms and cere- 
monies, of priests and sacrifices, was at an end. 
Henceforth men were to worship God, not in 
Samaria nor in Jerusalem, but everywhere ; not 
according to an elaborate and tedious ritual, but “ in 
spirit and truth ” (St. John iv. 24). Nor was their 
worship to be outward and formal ; it was to be in- 
ward and spiritual. The law was henceforth to be 
written, not on tablets of stone, but on their hearts. 
The Spirit of God would so change their hearts that 
obedience would be joyful, and that duty would be 
transfigured into delight. The one outward ordi- 
nance of the Christian faith which was to be per- 
petually repeated was to be the impressive symbol of 
the inwardness and intense spirituality of the “ new 
covenant.” 

Every time the scripturally-instructed communi- 
cant eats the bread and drinks the wine of the 
Lord’s Supper, he is reminded that the day of sacred 
places and sacred persons has passed away for ever. 
Now every spot is equally sacred, and every person 
is equally near to God. Everything that is local, 
everything that is narrow, everything that is exclu- 


THE NEW COVENANT. 


141 


sive, is abolished by the “New Covenant.” The 
profoundly significant fact that our Lord should have 
associated the striking phrase of Jeremiah with the 
institution of the Lord’s Supper makes that rite a 
perpetual protest against everything which denies or 
obscures the intense and absolute spirituality of the 
Christian religion. From this standpoint, the Lord’s 
Supper teaches precisely the same truth as the rend- 
ing of the Veil of the inner sanctuary at the very 
moment that Christ died. That Veil was the ulti- 
mate symbol of the Mosaic distinction between Jew 
and Gentile, between man and woman, between 
layman and priest. The rending of the Veil from 
top to bottom, the exposure of the Most Holy Place 
to the light of common day, taught the Jew as 
perhaps no other external symbolic incident could 
have taught him, that all distinctions of race, sex, 
and caste were abolished for ever ; that in Christi- 
anity “ there can be neither Jew nor Greek, there 
can be neither bond nor free, there can be no male 
and female ” (Gal. iii. 28). 

In the same way at the very moment of insti- 
tuting the Lord’s Supper, our Lord deliberately 
chose the striking language of Jeremiah in order 
that this Holy Sacrament, whenever we partake of it, 
may remind us that in the days of the “ New 
Covenant ” place is nothing, motive is everything ; 
profession is nothing, conduct is everything. If we 
can form any conception of the weary pilgrimages, the 
elaborate ceremonies, and the punctilious officialism 


142 


ESSENTIAL CHRISTIANITY. 


of the Jewish Church, we can understand the 
rapturous delight with which St. Paul realised 
that these things were abolished for ever, and that 
he need groan no longer under the intolerable 
ecclesiastical burdens which neither he nor his 
fathers had ever been able to bear. We, who have 
all our days breathed the air of spiritual freedom, 
can scarcely realise what an emancipation it was to a 
conscientious Pharisee like St. Paul. Truly the 
“ burden ” of Christ is “ light.” We are no longer 
tied, and bound, and worried, and harried by all 
sorts of ceremonial obligations. We are so free that 
we may say in the bold words of St. Augustine, 
“ Love God, and do what you like.” In other words, 
when we really love God we do not “like” to do 
anything that displeases Him, and our obedience to 
Him is the free, joyous, spontaneous obedience of 
grown-up children, not the weary observance of the 
microscopic details of an external ritual. 

It is only in the light of the words of Jeremiah, to 
which our Saviour referred, that the true, inspiring, 
and spiritual significance of the Lord’s Supper can 
be realised. It is only in the light of that passage 
that the Epistles of St. Paul can be understood, and 
that we are able to appreciate the indignation and 
the terror with which he saw that the Galatians were 
once more disposed to place their necks under the 
miserable yoke of a ceremonial law. The New 
Covenant treats us not as children but as full-grown, 
rational, and responsible human beings. It does not 


THE NEW COVENANT. 


143 


fetter us at every turn with ecclesiastical red-tape. 
It changes our whole nature, so that we become, in 
the bold but literally exact language of St. Paul, “ a 
new creation ” (Gal. vi. 15). It cleanses the very 
thoughts of our heart ; so that our obedience is no 
longer a mechanical or external conformity to the 
regulations of an ecclesiastical ceremonial, but a 
healthy, natural, and spontaneous devotion to our 
Sovereign Father in heaven. 




THE PENTECOSTAL BLESSING. 


“ And it shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out my 
spirit upon all flesh : and your sons and your daughters shall pro- 
phesy, your old men shall dream dreams, your young men shall 
see visions ; and also upon the servants and upon the handmaids 
in those days will I pour out my spirit.” — Joel ii., 28, 29. 


THE PENTECOSTAL BLESSING. 

N OTHING whatever is known of Joel, the son of 
Pethuel, and an extraordinary controversy rages 
with respect to the date of his prophecy. Strange 
to say, centuries intervene between the only possible 
dates. He must have lived either at the very begin- 
ning of the period of the great literary prophets of the 
Hebrew race, or long after the return from the Baby- 
lonian Captivity. He prophesied either in the days 
of Joash or long centuries later. This controversy 
is of no practical importance to the devout student 
of the Bible who reads the prophecy for devotional 
and not for critical ends. The essential truths of the 
Bible are quite independent of the accidents of time 
and place which mark their utterance. The real 
meaning and permanent value of a painting does 
not depend upon the frame in which it is placed, 
and the permanent lessons which Joel was inspired 
to declare are not in the least affected by the 
uncertainty whether he lived at the beginning or 
at the close of the prophetic era. The very un- 


148 


ESSENTIAL CHRISTIANITY. 


certainty which exists with respect to the date 
of his prophecies may teach us to attach less im- 
portance to those features of our life which are 
seen and temporal and to look always for the under- 
lying elements which are unseen and eternal, and 
which alone are of abiding importance either to our- 
selves or to others. 

To whatever date the learned may ultimately 
assign the prophecies of Joel, he was roused to pro- 
phesy by a terrible national calamity. An extra- 
ordinary visitation of successive swarms of locusts 
had devastated the land, and this evil had been 
aggravated by a deadly drought. The agricultural 
depression from which this country is now suffering 
may give us some faint idea of the national misery 
occasioned by a more terrible agricultural failure in 
a country much more dependent upon agriculture 
than we are. Such visitations have their imme- 
diate compensation in the way in which they rouse 
the best and the most thoughtful men to a more 
vivid sense of divine realities. It is unfortunate that 
even the best of our race so often need the pressure 
and misery of national suffering to rouse them into 
an adequate consciousness of the claims of God. We 
are all so apt to be pre-occupied with the small de- 
tails of ordinary existence that sometimes nothing less 
than huge calamities can bring home to us a vivid con- 
sciousness of the meaning and responsibility of life. 

Joel, thoroughly aroused and awakened to the 
divine realities of history urges the priests to pro- 


THE PENTECOSTAL BLESSING. 


149 


claim a fast, and to gather the people together for 
solemn humiliation and prayer. In the second chapter 
of his prophecy there is a further and very vivid de- 
scription of the invading hordes of locusts which, 
with prophetic insight, Joel regards as the avenging 
army of God let loose among His people to rebuke 
and punish them for their sins. But even now he 
declares the evil may be averted if the people really 
repent ; and he urges them to repentance in a passage 
so beautiful, so spiritual, so intensely evangelical, 
that it is used to this day in the liturgy of the 
Christian Church, and is constantly upon the lips of 
the best Christians : “ Yet even now, saith the Lord, 
turn ye unto me with all your heart, and with 
fasting, and with weeping, and with mourning ; and 
rend your heart, and not your garments, and turn unto 
the Lord your God : for He is gracious and full of 
compassion, slow to anger, and plenteous in mercy, 
and repen teth Him of the evil ” (Joel ii., 12, 13). 

At the 18th verse of the second chapter a new 
section commences. It is very unfortunate that 
those who divided the Bible into chapters did not 
begin a fresh chapter here. We must assume a 
pause and an interval between the demand of the 
prophet for repentance, confession, and humiliation on 
the part of the people, and the answer of God which 
follows the response of the people. In obedience to 
the exhortation of the prophet, they humble them- 
selves before God, confess their sins, rend their heart 
and not their garments, and turn to Jehovah. Then 


150 


ESSENTIAL CHRISTIANITY. 


God proves that He is, indeed, “ gracious and full of 
compassion, slow to anger, and plenteous in mercy.” 
He assures them that the locusts shall be swept away, 
and that the drought shall cease. He will give them 
“ the former rain and the latter rain,” “ the floors shall 
be full of wheat, and the fats shall overflow with wine 
and oil” (Joel ii., 24). He will restore all the years 
that the locusts had eaten ; peace, and plenty, and 
happiness shall abound on every side, and then, as we 
read in the text, “ it shall come to pass afterward ” 
that God will pour out His Spirit “ upon all flesh.” 
In other words, as the crowning blessing, all ages and 
both sexes shall share and enjoy the prophetic gift. 
Moses, in one of those moments of rare and glorious 
magnanimity which characterise the greatest of the 
great, exclaimed, “Would God that all Jehovah's 
people were prophets, that Jehovah would put His 
Spirit upon them ! ” (Num. xi., 29). Moses probably 
had no hope that this great wish could ever be realised, 
but Joel declares that the day would come when it 
would be literally fulfilled. You will notice that 
material prosperity comes first, and the universal 
prophetic blessing afterwards. Joel does not pro- 
mise this great gift until the people have been 
satisfied with corn, and wine, and oil, until “ the 
pastures of the wilderness ” once more “ spring ” with 
grass, and “ the tree beareth her fruit,” and “ the fig 
tree and the vine do yield their strength.” The phy- 
sical needs of the people are to be abundantly 
satisfied before they receive a special spiritual blessing. 


THE PENTECOSTAL BLESSING. 


151 


The significant order in which the inspired pro- 
phet mentions material and spiritual prosperity 
justifies the demand of modern Socialists that ample 
provision should be made for the physical needs of 
mankind. There is an irritating tendency on the 
part of some excellent, well-fed, well-housed, and 
well-clothed persons, who have never been really 
hungry since they were born, to talk about “ taking 
the Gospel ” to the starving and the destitute, while 
they ostentatiously refuse to trouble themselves in 
the least about economic and social questions. 
These well-fed, well-housed, and well-clothed indi- 
viduals would assume a very different tone if they 
had been fasting two days, and if their wives and 
children were dying of want under their very eyes. 
The Scriptures everywhere rebuke and condemn the 
selfish and cruel argument that religion has nothing 
to do with feeding the hungry and clothing the 
naked. On the contrary, both the Old and the New 
Testament give the greatest possible prominence to 
the physical and social needs of men. The way in 
which the Old Testament dwells upon material 
prosperity is notorious. But the New Testament is 
equally pronounced. How significant it is that in 
the model prayer, the Lord’s Prayer itself, the first 
personal request that we are instructed to make is 
a request for food! The request for food in the 
teaching of our Lord deliberately and significantly 
precedes the request for forgiveness. There can be 
no doubt that Socialists have a very strong case 


152 


ESSENTIAL CHRISTIANITY. 


against those privileged persons of the middle and 
upper classes who are always talking about “the 
Gospel ” and “ the dear Lord/’ but who do nothing 
whatever to secure employment for the unemployed, 
and food for the starving. The passage which we 
have to examine now is one which, as we all know 
was fulfilled on the day of Pentecost, and we must 
consider “ the Pentecostal Blessing ” as interpreted 
by the historical framework in which we find the 
prophetic reference to it. But I cannot too empha- 
tically dwell upon the fact that the prophet of 
God declares that Material Prosperity is to come 
first, and the Pentecostal Blessing second. In 
special and individual cases the Pentecostal Bless- 
ing may be obtained even while thousands are 
starving, but it can never be realised on a large and 
national scale until the voice of complaining ceases 
in our streets, and every honest and industrious 
man has a reasonable opportunity of making a com- 
fortable livelihood for his family and himself. Let 
that never be forgotten. 

But having fully realised that, we have now to 
ask, what is this extraordinary spiritual blessing 
which crowns national well-being ? In what sense 
are all Jehovah’s people to be “prophets”? It is 
quite clear that the conventional definition of 
“ prophecy ” is far too narrow and inadequate. To 
prophesy in the spiritual sense is not so much to 
“ foretell ” as to “ forthtell ” ; and the great charac- 
teristic feature of the prophet is not “foresight” 


THE PENTECOSTAL BLESSING. 


153 


but “insight.” The foresight, which we have mis- 
takenly supposed was his great distinction, is the 
result of his insight. It is because he has so pro- 
found an insight into the real significance of the 
facts of life and “the signs of the times,” that 
he is able to forecast the future, inevitable out- 
come of the evolution of history. In a word, the 
very essence of the prophetic gift is to see history 
from the divine stand-point. In the first place, the 
true prophet always vividly realises the presence of 
God, the immanence of God in all things and in all 
events. The two greatest prophets of antiquity 
were Moses and Elijah. And they were the greatest 
because they realised more vividly and more in- 
tensely than any other the presence and the cease- 
less activity of God “in whom we live, and move, 
and have our being.” As the author of the Epistle 
to the Hebrews has so finely said, Moses “ forsook 
Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king: for he 
endured, as seeing Him who is invisible ” (Hebrews 
xi. 27). Behind the unique splendour, the un- 
paralleled glory, and the apparently irresistible as 
well as unchallenged, might of Egypt, the prophetic 
eye of Moses saw the greater and eternal power of 
the ever-living and ever-present God. This insight 
enabled him to “ foresee ” the triumph of Israel and 
the overthrow of Egypt, and to “forthtell,” with 
dauntless moral courage, the will of the eternal and 
unchangeable God. 

As for Elijah, notwithstanding brief moments of 


154 


ESSENTIAL CHRISTIANITY. 


depression and timidity, he was the very incarnation 
of fearless heroism, and was able and willing to 
stand absolutely alone, and to speak out, in the very 
presence of death, because he was able to speak of 
God thus: — “As Jehovah, the God of Israel, liveth, 
before whom I stand” (I. Kings xvii. 1). Ever 
“ standing ” in the realised presence of the almighty 
and unchangeable God of Israel, he feared neither 
Ahab, nor Jezebel, nor the priests of Baal, nor 
multitudes of people, but unhesitatingly and in the 
plainest terms declared the will of God. 

“Nothing to him were fleeting time and fashion, 

His soul was led by the eternal law.” 

Yes ! The prophet who realises the presence of 
God realises also the Eternal Order which God has 
established, which prevails even on earth, which 
survives the superficial chaos and confusion occa- 
sioned by the folly and wickedness of mankind. 
The true prophet realises the Eternal Kingdom of 
God which has existed from the beginning, and 
which is being more and more realised and mani- 
fested on earth as the purposes of God are slowly 
evolved in human history. Most of the servants of 
God are like the young man, the servant of Elisha. 
They see the horses and chariots of the King of 
Syria surrounding Dothan on every side and they 
exclaim, in terror-stricken accents: “Alas, my 
master ! how shall we do ? ” Then the true prophet 
answered : “ Fear not : for they that be with us are 
more than they that be with them. And Elisha 


THE PENTECOSTAL BLESSING. 


155 


prayed, and said, Jehovah, I pray Thee, open his 
eyes, that he may see. And Jehovah opened the 
eyes of the young man ; and he saw : and, behold, 
the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire 
round about Elisha” (II. Kings vi. 16 and 17). 
When the Pentecostal gift is bestowed, we see the 
horses and chariots of fire, we realise what the blind 
children of this world never know, and our minds 
are kept in perfect peace. The prophetic “ insight ” 
then given to us inevitably becomes “ foresight,” and 
we are able to prophesy, in the narrow and con- 
ventional sense in which that word is generally 
understood, the overthrow of Evil and the final 
triumph of Good. 

As I have already reminded you, and as all are 
aware, St. Peter declared in his sermon on the Day 
of Pentecost that the passage we are now examining 
in its historical framework, was fulfilled on that day, 
and it is extremely important that all those earnest 
Christians who are interested in what they call “ the 
Second Blessing,” and “the Pentecostal Blessing,” 
and “the Enduement of Power,” should take the 
plain hint which St. Peter has given them ; and 
instead of giving a loose rein to their fancies, should 
bring their interpretation of the great event of the 
Day of Pentecost into harmony with the teaching of 
the prophet Joel. It is quite evident from what I 
have already said that the Pentecostal Blessing is not 
some morbid excitement, or hysterical ecstasy, or 
inexplicable rapture. St. Peter gives us the key to 


156 


ESSENTIAL CHRISTIANITY. 


the mystery which has perplexed so many minds, 
and caused so much fruitless controversy. We 
must turn from the second chapter of the Acts of 
the Apostles to the second chapter of the Book of 
Joel if we wish to understand what has agitated 
so many Holiness Conventions, and led so many well- 
meaning but uneducated Christians into wild extra- 
vagances and dangerous delusions. 

The “ Pentecostal Blessing,” as interpreted by the 
prophecy of Joel, obviously means, first of all, a very 
vivid realisation of God. That is, in the Christian era, 
a very vivid realisation of present, personal salvation 
in Christ. In these last days God has summed up 
and focussed all other revelations of Himself in the 
person of Jesus Christ. The “ Invisible God ” whom 
Moses saw, the “ Eternal ” in whose presence 
Elijah stood, is for us none other than Jesus of 
Nazareth. He said, “ he that hath seen me hath seen 
the Father,” and the first great feature of the Pente- 
costal Blessing is insight into “ the mind of Christ ” ; 
such a consciousness of the eternal, unchangeable, 
all-embracing Love of God as fills our souls with a 
delicious sense of personal security in Him, and an 
exhilarating consciousness that He who loves us 
loves all other men, and is able and willing to save 
them all, and to save them all immediately, now, 
however ignorant, however degraded, however wicked 
they may be. 

Secondly, the Pentecostal Blessing is a vivid 
realisation not only of God but of the Kingdom of 


THE PENTECOSTAL BLESSING. 


157 


God which Christ came to establish. It will be 
observed that after the Day of Pentecost the Apostles 
and the first Christians never reverted to their 
old material dream of the mere political restoration 
of the kingdom of Judah. Their views became now 
much too broad and too high to be satisfied by that 
narrow, local, and particularist hope. They began 
to “ dream dreams ” of Social Salvation, and to “ see 
visions ” of a good time coming for the entire human 
race. St. Peter, indeed, warned them that the pro- 
phetic gift which had come would be followed by 
strife and dire catastrophe ; and his prophetic fore- 
cast was fulfilled by the destruction of Jerusalem, 
and the world-wide tragedies which followed the 
Day of Pentecost and the commencement of the 
Christian era. Why is the immediate result of the 
prophetic gift strife and misery? Why is it true 
that Christ came not to send peace but a sword ? 
Because the moment a man becomes a “ prophet ” 
the world hates him. You may be anything except 
a prophet and enjoy the favour of the world. You 
may especially be a priest, and the world will be 
ready to grovel at your feet in the hope that by 
some adroit manoeuvre or skilful interposition 
you may save the world from the punishment it 
deserves and dreads. But if you become a prophet 
you are inevitably the deadly and irreconcilable 
enemy of the world. You see through it, and you 
see the eternal realities behind it. You know by a 
divine and irresistible intuition that the lust of the 


158 


ESSENTIAL CHRISTIANITY. 


flesh, the lust of the eye, and the pride of life bring 
woe and death. You are compelled to prophesy the 
overthrow of everything the world worships, and 
you will be hated by all men, especially by worldly 
men who profess to be the servants of God, as Christ 
Himself was hated. 

There is no escape from this position. Christ 
said everywhere that we Christians must “ be in the 
world as He was,” that we must “walk in His 
footsteps,” that we must imitate Him ; but we can- 
not be in the w T orld as He was, we cannot walk in 
His footsteps, we cannot imitate Him, unless we are 
prophets. He was a Prophet of God : that was His 
role. In the days of His obscurity He was a village 
wheelwright, but the moment He appeared upon 
the scene of history He was a prophet, and we have 
to imitate Him in being prophets. No disciple was 
fit for the work to which he was called until the 
Day of Pentecost, because no disciple received the 
prophetic gift until that day. But all received it 
then— the women as well as the men, the boys and 
girls as well as the men and women. No one can 
be a Christian, in the full sense of the word until he 
has received the prophetic gift, because “ all Jehovah’s 
people ” must be prophets, and no one has any right 
to call himself by the name of Christ until he is 
“anointed with the Holy Ghost and with power,” 
and, therefore, qualified to carry on the work which 
Christ began. Many of you have heard me say that 
the practical, ethical result of the Day of Pente- 


THE PENTECOSTAL BLESSING 


159 


cost was moral courage, and that there was no per- 
ceptible difference in the Apostles and the first 
Christians after the Day of Pentecost except moral 
courage. That is true, but it is not a full statement 
of the case, for moral courage is a result, not a cause ; 
a structure, not a foundation. 

Moral courage must rest on something, and the 
moral courage which was the conspicuous quality of 
the first Christians, which is the rarest, the most 
precious, the most essential of all gifts, rested on 
such a view of God and Man as was found in Christ, 
and as was found in Christ because He was full of the 
Holy Ghost. I have already reminded you that the 
Lord commanded His first disciples to “tarry” in 
Jerusalem until the Day of Pentecost, because they 
were morally unfit to do their work without the 
Divine Illumination which was that day given to 
them. When we receive the Pentecostal Blessing 
we see everything in a new light. We see mankind 
in a new light. We have such a consciousness of 
God, and of the Kingdom of God, that we fear 
neither man nor devil. We are armed for the first 
time with the moral courage which enables us to 
be “ steadfast, unmovable, always abounding in the 
work of God.” I have sometimes said that the 
reason why so many Christians are so cowardly, so 
narrow-minded in their ideas, so microscopical in 
their hopes, is because they have no Imagination. 
They do not “dream dreams,” they do not “see 
visions.” This is only another way of expressing 


160 


ESSENTIAL CHRISTIANITY. 


what I have just explained. The great need of the 
Christian Church is not pastors, but prophets. We 
have plenty of pastors, especially at home. We 
might send two-thirds of them to Africa and Asia, 
and yet have an ample supply left for all home- 
missionary purposes, if “ all J ehovah’s people ” were 
prophets. Until we have the Pentecostal Illumina- 
tion we are so weak, so ignorant, so cowardly, so 
lazy, so selfish, that if every individual professor of 
Christianity had a hundred pastors to look after him 
he would not have one too many. But when the 
Pentecostal Blessing is given to us, when our eyes 
are opened, when we see God and Man as Christ saw 
God and Man, we shall not be incessantly whining 
for pastoral attentions. We shall have the moral 
courage “ to seek first the kingdom of God and His 
righteousness,” and to go cheerfully ourselves into 
the most distant and most dangerous wildernesses 
“ to seek and to save ” the lost sheep of God. 

It is greatly to be feared that many persons go 
to the Keswick Convention, and other devout 
gatherings, and positively torture themselves with 
fruitless agonies of unrealisable aspirations, because 
it has never occurred to them to read the Acts of 
the Apostles in the light of the Book of Joel. Chris- 
tians are in great danger of judging themselves by 
themselves, and by the experience of other Christians 
instead of going straight to the fountain-head, the 
Bible itself. Even when we do go to the Bible we 
are in terrible peril of unconsciously reading into 


THE PENTECOSTAL BLESSING. 


161 


the Bible all sorts of subjective delusions which ori- 
ginated in some hysterical mood or temperament. 
For all this there is no remedy except the plain, 
honest, healthy study of the Bible, and the habit 
commended to us by the experience of the best 
Christians of all ages — the habit of comparing scrip- 
ture with scripture. Now, when we compare the 
much-controverted second chapter of the Acts of the 
Apostles with the second chapter of the Book of Joel, 
everything becomes plain, simple, straightforward, 
and reasonable. What every Christian needs, beyond 
all doubt, is “the Pentecostal Blessing,” the great 
prophetic illumination which makes him so con- 
scious of God, and of the Kingdom of God, that he 
realises there is no such thing as “ necessary evil ; ” 
and therefore cherishes the largest hopes with respect 
to the reconstruction of human society in every 
land, and in every department of life, upon a Chris- 
tian basis. 

One question — and one of unspeakable import- 
ance — remains to be answered. If this “Pente- 
costal Blessing” is essential to a full-orbed and 
scriptural Christian life, how can I obtain it? 
What are the conditions upon which it may become 
mine ? Listen ! Christ Himself answered that ques- 
tion in language which is quite unmistakable. “ If 
ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts 
unto your children, how much more shall your 
heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that 
ask Him?” (Luke xi. 13). It is a free gift. We 
W 


162 


ESSENTIAL CHRISTIANITY. 


never deserve it. We can never grow into it. It is 
not the result of the evolution even of the Christian 
life. It is not one of the consequences of “ growth ” 
in Christ. It is essentially different from the 
maturity of Christian character; for, as we are 
reminded, it comes to both sexes and all ages. On 
the Day of Pentecost it was a universal gift, not only 
to the most worthy, the most experienced and the 
best, but to every disciple without exception. It is, 
therefore, entirely independent of human merit in 
any shape or form. It is a “ gift ” for service, and, 
let me add, it is a gift bestowed only upon those who 
“ ask ” for it. 

Nothing has more greatly perplexed observant 
Christians than the fact that many saintly minis- 
ters of religion have no fruit to their ministry; 
and the perplexity occasioned by this fact is in- 
creased when it is observed that other Christians 
less saintly, and at a lower ethical level, are sometimes 
conspicuously successful. The explanation is very 
simple to those who are willing to be taught by the 
Bible. Christ declares to us in the great passage I 
have just quoted that the Holy Spirit is given to 
those who “ ask ” the Father for that gift, and, how- 
ever humble, saintly, and earnest a man may be, if 
he does not “ ask ” for that special gift, he will never 
receive it. 

On the other hand, however ignorant and inex- 
perienced a “babe” in Christ may be, if, with a 
trustful heart, he “asks” for the great prophetic 


THE PENTECOSTAL BLESSING. 


163 


gift, most assuredly he shall receive it. To every 
Christian, without exception, St. Paul says, “Be 
hlled with the Spirit ” (Eph. v. 18). It was because 
St. Peter and St. Paul were themselves prophets of 
God that they realised the deeper and the abiding 
significance of the wonderful prophecy of Joel. The 
reason why Christianity makes so little progress is 
the disastrous fact that so few Christians enjoy the 
Pentecostal Blessing. How few prophets and pro- 
phetesses there are in the Church of Christ ! How 
few men and women are “ filled with the Holy 
Spirit,” and therefore filled with moral courage, and 
the enthusiasm of humanity, and boundless devotion 
to the service of God and man ! 

The fragments of early Christian literature, like 
“ The Teaching of the Apostles,” which have been so 
singularly brought to light in our own day, show 
that in the primitive Church the most conspicuous 
and honoured individuals were the “ prophets,” not 
the “ pastors ” or “ teachers,” who come indeed at the 
very bottom of the catalogue of precedence drawn 
up by the Apostle Paul. The whole character of 
the Christian Church was changed for the worse 
when financial and organising officials took the place 
of inspired prophets. When bishops who were not 
prophets superseded prophets, the long humiliation 
and apostasy of the Christian Church began. From 
time to time, in all communities of Christians, God 
has raised up prophets and prophetesses with epoch- 
making results. Think, for example, of the influence 


164 


ESSENTIAL CHRISTIANITY. 


in this country of George Fox and the early Quakers, 
and then of John Wesley and the early Methodists ! 
The work of centuries was achieved in decades. 
Never shall we see great revivals and national 
triumphs of Christianity, either at home or abroad- 
until the Pentecostal prophecy of Joel is once more 
widely fulfilled. 


THE SOCIAL GOSPEL OE JOEL. 


“Then shall Jerusalem be holy, and there shall no strangers 
pass through her any more.” — Joel iii., 17. 


THE SOCIAL GOSPEL OF JOEL. 



"E have already seen that the Gospel of Joel 


* ▼ consists in the declaration that if the men 
of Judah rend their heart and not their garments 
and turn unto Jehovah their God, He, who “is 
gracious and full of compassion, slow to anger, and 
plenteous in mercy,” will forgive their sins and 
restore them to great material prosperity. After 
that happy solution of the problem of Pauperism, 
God, adds Joel, will give them a crowning spiritual 
blessing ; He will “ pour out ” His “ spirit upon all 
flesh,” both their “ sons ” and their “ daughters ” 
should “ prophesy.” I emphasise the order of events — 
first material prosperity, and then a great spiritual 
revival which is not to be the privilege of any class 
or any caste, but which will be granted to both 
sexes and all ages. The very universality of the 
prophetic blessing proves that we are apt to under- 
stand the word “ prophesy ” in a narrow, conven- 
tional, unscriptural sense. The “foresight,” which 
we usually identify with prophecy, is really the 


168 


ESSENTIAL CHRISTIANITY. 


result of the “insight,” which is the special pro- 
phetic gift ; and the “ foretelling ” in which prophecy 
is commonly supposed to consist, is, in fact, the out- 
come of the fearless “ forthtelling ” of truth. St. 
Peter declared that this complex promise was in 
part fulfilled on the Day of Pentecost. 

I have now to make a very important addition to 
what I have already said. I must complete the 
statement of the Gospel of Joel. Beyond the great 
spiritual blessing, which was realised on the Day of 
Pentecost, Joel promised, with prophetic insight and 
foresight, a millennial period of social salvation or 
civic righteousness. Ill-informed and infantile 
Christians imagine that there is nothing beyond the 
“ prophetic " blessing, and that the utmost we are 
entitled to expect in this world is a series of great 
spiritual revivals, accompanied by numerous personal 
conversions. But, says Joel — as is unmistakably 
manifest, if you continue to read and ponder his 
words — that is not all. Pentecost is not an end in 
itself, it is a means to an end. The “ Pentecostal 
Blessing,” as we have already seen, inevitably pre :x 
cipitates a fearful conflict between the illuminated 
prophets of God and the selfish children of this 
world ; and the prophets are subject to terrible per- 
secutions. But that is not the end. The first result 
of Pentecost is the destruction of Jerusalem, but the 
second result is the rebuilding and reconstruction of 
Jerusalem, and the final outcome of “ the great and 
terrible day of Jehovah” is, as our text declares, 


THE SOCIAL GOSPEL OF JOEL 


169 


that “Jerusalem shall be holy,” and no invaders 
from the East or from the West shall pass through 
her streets any more. 

That is the ultimate goal — a holy city, not merely 
holy individuals, and groups of holy individals, but a 
holy city. It is obvious that the complete pro- 
gramme of Joel could not be carried out in the days 
of the Apostles. Christianity was at first, and foi 
many generations, not sufficiently widespread and 
powerful to realise the divine ideal. But the best 
and most devout Christians in all ages have been 
more or less conscious that the outpouring of the 
Spirit of God “ upon all flesh ” should be followed, 
not only by individual conversions, strife, and 
persecution, but by the gradual reconstruction of a 
Christian society. Savonarola realised that in 
Florence, Calvin realised it in Geneva, John Knox 
realised it in Edinburgh, the best Popes realised it in 
Eome. The fatal demand of the Papacy for Temporal 
Power is a perversion and caricature of the pro- 
gramme of Christianity. Not in Eome only, under 
the sovereignty of a bishop, but in every city and 
in every land, the Social Gospel of Joel must be 
realised. Because we Christians have failed to 
realise this, the majority of the men of every nomi- 
nally Christian country are outside the Christian 
Church to-day ; and the Socialistic Movement, which 
is the great fact and the great peril of modern 
society, is so often fiercely anti-Christian. In our 
other-worldliness and exaggerated individualism we 


170 


ESSENTIAL CHRISTIANITY. 


have forgotten that the ideal set forth by the 
prophet Joel, and by every other prophet of God, is 
not merely numerous individual conversions, but a 
“ holy City,” a righteous and Christian Society, where 
law, custom, and opinion are brought into beautiful 
harmony with the thoughts and purposes of God. 

No one realises this missing link, this neglected 
but vital feature of Christianity, more keenly or 
more deeply than Mr. W. T. Stead. He has just issued 
a characteristic book entitled, “ If Christ came to 
Chicago.” I am bound to assume the truth of the ter- 
rible statements which he makes respecting the social 
condition of that great American city, as I observe 
that his most hostile critics denounce him mainly on 
the ground that there is nothing new in his book, 
and that he is simply relating what everybody knew 
perfectly well before. Could there be a more terrible 
confession ? Here is one of the greatest cities of the 
West — already it has a million inhabitants — it is 
cosmopolitan, and it is probably destined to become 
hereafter the greatest city in the world ; yet Mr. Stead 
tells us calmly and deliberately that its corpora- 
tion is corrupt, its police are corrupt, and its 
magistrates are corrupt. Liquor saloons, houses 
of infamy, gambling hells, exist unblushingly and 
defiantly on every side. He declares that the citi- 
zens are fleeced in all directions by unscrupulous 
and heartless companies, and that beneath all the 
gaudy splendour of wealth you find the extremest filth 
and misery. Listen to his description of this huge 


THE SOCIAL GOSPEL OF JOEL. 171 

city : — “ Mammon holds high carnival in its gilded 
palaces while little children hunger, mothers grow 
faint for food and die, and strong men weep for want 
of work.” What a description of one of the greatest, 
wealthiest, and most vita] cities in the world ! Mr. 
Stead goes on to explain that utter political corrup- 
tion prevails, votes are systematically bought and 
sold, and there are constant scenes of violence and 
bloodshed. Worst of all, the newspapers are cowed and 
the pulpits are cowed. Gold rules everybody every- 
where. There is no doubt that this awful indictment 
is substantially true. We dare not assume any 
Pharisaical airs. If an American citizen with pro- 
phetic insight were to visit London or any of our 
great towns, many hideous vices would be found here. 
We live in glass houses and we dare not throw stones 
at our American kinsmen. Political unscrupulous- 
ness, commercial fraud, drunkenness, debauchery, 
gambling, mendacity, and utter selfishness are visible 
on every side, in England as well as in America. 
There may be some special evils in Chicago in conse- 
quence of its special circumstance*, but what is the 
principal cause of the political and social wickedness 
of Chicago and of all our great cities ? 

The principal cause is the neglect of Christian men 
to do their civic duty. In America, to a far greater 
extent than in this country, politics are handed over 
to professional and mercenary wire-pullers. Chicago 
has been brought to the very verge of hell because 
the Christians of Chicago have forgotten that the 


172 


ESSENTIAL CHRISTIANITY. 


programme of God includes “ a holy city.” Like 
many Christians in our own country they have been too 
exclusively spiritual and too exclusively individualistic. 
They have been under the delusion that if they 
simply deal with the individual sinner, and induce a 
certain number of men and women to repent of their 
sins and to submit to Christ, they have done their 
whole duty ; whereas Jesus Christ came into this 
world not simply, and not mainly to save individuals, 
but rather to establish the “ Kingdom of God,” to 
reconstruct human society on a Christian basis, to 
bring law and the administration of law into har- 
mony with the mind of Jehovah. Because it was 
impossible to realise the whole prophecy of Joel two 
thousand years ago on the Day of Pentecost at the 
beginning of the Christian era, it is assumed that it 
is impossible to-day, when Christians are so numer- 
ous that if they were only prepared to do their duty 
they could make every civilised land in reality what 
it has heretofore been only in name — a Christian 
country. If Christians were to suspend their interne- 
cine strife, and instead of incessantly quarrelling with 
one another, to the great delight of their adversaries, 
were to quarrel unanimously with the devil, Europe, 
North America, and Australia would soon be so 
changed, and changed for the better, that we should 
scarcely be able to recognise these continents again. 

No words are strong enough to describe the failure 
and misery which have been entailed upon millions 
of the human race by the excessive other-worldliness 


THE SOCIAL GOSPEL OF JOEL. 173 

and individualism of spiritually-minded Christians 
who have never realised the full scope of the mission 
of Christ. It is a very startling fact that Atheists 
and Agnostics often realise the social aspirations and 
ideals of Jesus Christ immeasurably better than 
Christians. A hundred years ago the disciples of 
Eousseau and Voltaire preached Liberty, Equality, 
Fraternity. As the learned and saintly Bishop of Dur- 
ham has pointed out, Liberty, Equality, and Frater- 
nity are simply the principles of the Gospel of Christ 
applied to society. If Christians had preached Liberty, 
Equality, and Fraternity, as well as personal Conver- 
sion, the Millennium would have dawned long since. 
In our own day Humanitarians, Agnostics, Positivists, 
Theosophists, and Socialists are preaching the Social 
Gospel of Jesus Christ far more clearly, eloquently, 
enthusiastically, and self-sacrificingly than the profes- 
sional representatives of Christ. They make the great 
mistake of supposing that these social ideals can 
be realised without personal Conversion: we make 
the equally disastrous mistake of imagining that 
personal Conversion is a final end, is all we should 
desire, and so we fail to win the manhood of Europe 
which, by the inspiration of God, demands Social 
Justice. I have said the manhood of Europe, but I 
must add the womanhood of Europe also. Nothing 
is more characteristic of the closing decades of this 
century than the way in which women, who have 
long been satisfied with a narrow and self-centred 
Gospel, are now beginning to demand, as passionately 


174 


ESSENTIAL CHRISTIANITY. 


as men, a Christianity that can be applied to the 
practical daily life of the people. The manhood of 
Europe has been alienated ; unless we are very care- 
ful, the womanhood of Europe will also be alienated. 

The misery of the situation is that the Individualist 
cannot really succeed without the Socialist, and the 
Socialist is equally helpless without the Individualist. 
What God has joined together, man, in his ignorance 
and folly, has tried to put asunder. The supreme 
curse of modern history is the fatal divorce between 
Personal Christianity and Social Christianity. One 
of the most beautiful, pathetic, and at the same time 
tragical phenomena of our own day is the fruitless 
effort of men and women, fired with the enthusiasm 
of humanity, to realise the Social programme of 
Jesus Christ, without realising that “improvement 
of the soul, which is the soul of all improvement.” 
In England, and elsewhere, men and women of pure 
life and noble aspirations are toiling to reclaim, and 
refine, and enrich the lives of the poor, the neglected, 
and the outcast; but all these lovely efforts, when 
separated from the supernatural co-operation of the 
Holy Spirit, end in disappointment and despair. 
Personal Conversion must precede Social Conversion. 
Many of the Social and Political ideals which now 
fill the air are impracticable and positively mis- 
chievous simply because unregenerate human nature 
is incapable of rising to them. Too many enthusiastic 
reformers are trying to construct a noble city in the 
absence of noble citizens. Some of the programmes 


THE SOCIAL GOSPEL OF JOEL. 


175 


set before us demand an amount of sustained un- 
selfishness and patient devotion to the highest ends, 
of which man is morally incapable until he has be*n 
made “a new creation” in Christ Jesus. Mr. Stead 
proposes to establish a Civic Federation of “ all who 
love in the service of all who suffer.” It is a beauti- 
ful dream, but it is only a dream. Jesus Christ 
supernaturally created the Christian Church for the 
express purpose of doing what Mr. Stead now pro- 
poses to do through the agency of a Civic Federation. 
The Christian Church, as originally created by Christ, 
consisted exclusively of truly converted men and 
women, living in daily conscious fellowship with 
Jesus Christ; and Christ saved them, and formed 
them into an organised body, in order that they might 
“ seek first the Kingdom of God,” and establish it 
upon earth. Our Lord devoted His main strength 
to the creation of this “ Church,” as He knew full 
well that the only Army of Progress against which 
“ the gates of Hades ” could never prevail would be 
the living army of prophets and prophetesses, who 
were filled with the Spirit, realised the ideals of God 
and were animated by fearless moral courage. 

We cannot improve upon the plans and organisa- 
tions of Divine Providence. Neither Chicago, nor 
London, nor any other great city, will ever be saved 
from social wrong and social misery, until true 
Christians band themselves together to seek no 
personal end, but “to seek the Kingdom of God,” 
and to realise the prophecy of J oel, that “ J erusalem 


176 


ESSENTIAL CHRISTIANITY. 


shall be holy.” How is it that the expression “ a 
holy city ” sounds so strange to our ears ? How com- 
pletely we must have forgotten the prophecies both 
of the Old and of the Hew Testament ! The Bible 
speaks more frequently of corporate and collective 
salvation than of personal salvation. Indeed, in the 
very highest sense, I can never fully achieve my per- 
sonal salvation except in a favourable and friendly 
environment. There are possibilities of goodness 
unrealisable except in a holy city. Why should we 
not hunger and thirst after civic righteousness as 
well as personal righteousness ? Who is ready to 
become a Christlike Christian ? Two qualifications 
are necessary : First, personal conversion, true repen- 
tance, leading to a real, absolute, unconditional, 
whole-hearted self-surrender to Christ. Secondly, 
beyond that, the “ Pentecostal Baptism ” of the Holy 
Spirit, the prophetic illumination already described, 
which enables us to realise vividly both our own 
salvation in Christ, and that “ Kingdom of God ” 
which is already established on earth, which is 
spreading in all directions, and which will grow 
with unprecedented rapidity if we Christians who 
stand on the threshold of the twentieth century are 
prepared, not only to surrender ourselves wholly to 
Christ, but to abandon our narrow prejudices, our 
conventional delusions, our partisan tastes and to 
make it — in the spirit of Joel and in the oft-quoted 
words of William Blake — our one supreme object 

“ To build Jerusalem 
In England’s green and pleasant land,” 


THE GOSPEL OF AMOS. 


‘ ‘ Thus saith the Lord unto the house of Israel, Seek ye me, and 
ye shall live : but seek not Beth-el, nor enter into Gilgal, and 
pass not to Beer- sheba.” — Amos Y. 6. 


THE GOSPEL OF AMOS. 


MOS, the herdsman of Tekoa, who lived about 



Xjl eight hundred years before Christ, is probably 
the first of that extraordinary group of Hebrew 
prophets whose manifestoes and appeals were com- 
mitted to writing. They appeared at one of the 
most remarkable and creative moments in the 
history of mankind. It was from that period 
that the Greeks dated their history, then the first 
Olympiad began ; then, also, the city of Rome 
was built; and then the world-empire of Assyria 
was founded. Amos was born in a sunny little 
town which nestled far up on the southern slopes 
of the mountains of Judea. There he lived in 
the midst of famous vineyards, fruitful gardens, 
and shady groves of sycamore-trees. But when he 
became a herdsman he took his flocks through 
gloomy valleys, and to the summit of lofty peaks. 
He watched the sky by night, he saw the lightning 
flash, and heard the thunder roar and roll. He 
knew both the smile and the frown of Nature. 


180 


ESSENTIAL CHRISTIANITY. 


That was not all. His business led him far away 
from his highland home, not only to Jerusalem but 
also to Samaria, the luxurious capital of the northern 
kingdom of Israel. It was in Samaria, not in 
Jerusalem, that the first of the great literary pro- 
phets lifted up his voice. 

What a scene it was when the solitary solemn 
rustic from the sunny south stood up in rough 
dress amid the gay crowd of the gay capital ! 
What was the burden of the message of that 
great mission preacher? It was a burden of con- 
demnation and of woe. The nation he addressed 
was wealthy, civilised, refined, prosperous, secure, 
and pre-eminently devout. Never were the ancient 
sanctuaries so crowded, never were the priests 
so numerous, never were the sacrifices and offer- 
ings so costly. But the great preacher looked 
beneath the glittering surface of things, he turned 
to contemplate the dark side of a showy and 
boastful civilisation. Wliat did he see? He saw 
tumults put down by brute force, and oppressions 
for which there was no redress. He saw the privi- 
leged classes “ trampling upon the poor ” and 
crushing the needy (iv. 1, v. 2). He saw that the 
rich and educated were “ sitting at ease in Zion ” 
(vi. 1), drinking delicious wines, listening to exquisite 
music, and never taking to heart the affliction of the 
people (vi. 3 — 6). He saw the smart men of business 
taking full advantage of unrestricted competition, 
swallowing up the needy and causing the poor of 


TIIE GOSPEL OF AMOS. 


181 


the land to fail (viii. 4). He saw tradesmen using 
false weights and giving false measures, having more 
than one price for the same article, and adulterating 
the food they sold (viii. 5 — 6). 

He saw that greed, lust, and suspicion were ram- 
pant on every hand. He lifted up his eyes and 
saw that the same tyranny, injustice, and unclean- 
ness were equally rife in all the neighbouring lands, 
Philistia, Tyre, Edom, Ammon, and Moab. Then the 
inspiration of God filled his soul, and he knew that 
Jehovah, the God of his own land, was the supreme 
God of all lands, and that He would punish, and soon 
punish, and terribly punish, his own country and the 
nations beyond the frontier. He saw the empire of 
the Assyrians which was gathering strength on the 
banks of the mighty Euphrates, and he told the 
giddy and superstitious crowds in the streets of 
Samaria that the day of divine indignation was at 
hand, the day when all their rotten prosperity would 
perish in blood and fire. 

That was a fundamental doctrine of all the pro- 
phets of God. Deliberate sin is always followed by 
divine punishment. Mr. Froude, in his lecture on 
the Science of History, says that “ one lesson of 
history ” is that “ the moral law is written on the 
tablets of eternity. Justice and truth alone endure 
and live. Injustice and falsehood may be long lived 
but doomsday comes at last to them, in French 
revolutions and other terrible ways.” Thus does the 
modern Professor of History in the University of 


182 


ESSENTIAL CHRISTIANITY. 


Oxford echo and confirm the doctrine of the herds- 
man of Tekoa. With him also agrees Matthew 
Arnold, who in the most remarkable of his writings 
declares that there is in history “ a power not our- 
selves which makes for righteousness.” Whatever 
man may say or think, breaches of the moral law are 
followed by national misery and national ruin. It 
very often happens, adds Mr. Matthew Arnold, that 
the final catastrophe comes when the guilty nation 
appears to be at the summit of its prosperity, when 
all rivals have been crushed, and when its military 
ascendency is undisputed. Then, in a moment, a 
bolt from the blue shatters it for ever. Professor 
Proude and Matthew Arnold have no prejudices in 
favour of Christianity, but their acquaintance with 
human history compels them to acknowledge that 
Amos was right. “ Be not deceived ; God is not 
mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall 
he also reap ” (Gal. vi. 7). All who do wrong are 
heaping up wrath against the day of wrath. 

There are two ways in which the children of evil 
try to delude and comfort their souls. They assert 
with passionate and desperate earnestness that there 
is no such thing as sin, that right and wrong are 
merely conventional terms. They put darkness for 
light, and bitter for sweet. They invent innocent 
and pretty names for guilty and hideous deeds. 
With awful truth does the gifted author of “ A Dead 
Man’s Diary ” describe the experience of a betrayer 
of youth when he awoke to reality in hell. “ I had 


THE GOSPEL OF AMOS. 


183 


accustomed myself,” says the Dead Man, “ to calling 
my crime ‘gallantry,’ in my own thoughts, and I 
should have regarded one who used harsher language 
as wanting in delicacy and breeding. And now I 
find myself branded as ‘ Murderer ’ and ‘ Seducer ’ 
to all eternity.” With passionate intensity he im- 
plores all men not to attempt to silence their con- 
science by explaining away the eternal and change- 
less difference between right and wrong. “ Such 
hardening of the heart against the Holy Spirit,” he 
declares, “ is the one unpardonable sin which is a 
thousandfold more awful in its consequences than is 
the crime which it seeks to conceal. It was the 
foulest stain on the soul of him who hung by the 
dying Saviour, and it is, I believe, at this moment 
the one and only thing that still keeps hell hell, 
and Satan Satan.” This testimony is true. When a 
man begins to sophisticate and palter with right and 
wrong, he has already entered the bottomless pit and 
is on the threshold of the region which is enveloped 
in the blackness of darkness for ever. 

Those children of evil who shrink from this 
extreme, sometimes seek false security in another 
direction. They try to persuade themselves, and to 
persuade one another, that they can succeed in 
evading the penalty of sin. They cry, “ Peace, peace, 
when there is no peace.” So said the gay and frivo- 
lous crowd in the dissolute metropolis of Samaria, and 
to them the Prophet Amos replied with swift and 
terrible indignation. “ All the sinners of my people 


184 


ESSENTIAL CHRISTIANITY. 


shall die by the sword, which say, The evil shall not 
overtake nor prevent us” (ix. 10). Your palaces, 
he cried, will be burned, your young men slain by the 
sword, your daughters degraded and enslaved. “ Woe 
to the wicked ! Woe to the wicked ! Woe to the 
wicked ! ” That great voice rang and reverberated 
through the crowded streets till all men heard and 
were afraid. Then they tried to comfort one another 
by saying, “ But see how crowded our churches are, 
how splendid our music, how eloquent our preachers, 
how large our collections ! ” At this point the high 
priest of Beth-el himself, Amaziah, appeared on the 
scene. That great ecclesiastic, anxious, as great 
ecclesiastics always are, for peace and moderation, 
and decorous conventional propriety, sought an inter- 
view with the king, and declared that the land was 
“not able to bear all” the “words” of Amos 
(vii. 10). 

This untutored rustic was much too plain-spoken, 
and too out-spoken. It was shocking and scandalous 
that he should use such language of the wealthy, 
the titled, and the great. Not satisfied with the 
representations he made to the king, who hesitated 
to lay violent hands upon a prophet of God, the 
high priest sought an interview wdth Amos himself, 
and urged him to leave the country at once, to return 
to his native land, and to “ prophesy there.” “ But,” 
added the proud and courtly prelate, “ prophesy not 
again any more at Beth-el : for it is the king’s 
sanctuary, and it is a royal house ” (vii. 13). In 


THE GOSPEL OF AMOS. 


185 


royal cities and in the shadow of royal palaces, he 
reminded Amos, men should prophesy smooth things, 
and avoid the harsh and alarming language which 
naturally affronts august ears. It w r as intolerable 
that an obscure and unauthorised itinerant evangelist 
should utter such coarse denunciations, such levelling 
and subversive sentiments in the great, fashionable, 
and prosperous city of Samaria. 

There is much excuse for the amazement and 
indignation of this worldly and courtly priest. The 
language of Amos was indeed startling. It produces 
little impression upon you and me, for we have for- 
gotten the sacred associations of the words he used. 
But ponder them again, and consider what they 
meant to his audience. “ Seek not Beth-el, nor enter 
into Gilgal, and pass not to Beer-sheba.” Beth-el, 
Gilgal, Beer-sheba, were words more full of sacred 
associations to the Jewish ear than Canterbury, 
Westminster, and York are to the ears of English 
churchmen. Beth-el was the holiest of holy places — 
it signified, and it was, “ The House of God.” It 
was the sacred scene of Jacob’s dream. There, also, 
the name Israel was given to him ; as Hosea after- 
wards said, it was there that Jacob “ had power over 
the angel and prevailed : he wept and made supplica- 
tion unto him : he found him at Beth-el ” (Hosea xii. 
4). Abraham, too, had built an altar there, and in the 
days of the Judges men went to Beth-el as the Greeks 
went to the august Oracle at Delphi. Moreover, at 
Bethel the ark of the covenant was finally deposited. 


186 


ESSENTIAL CHRISTIANITY. 


To tell a Jew that he must not go to Beth-el was 
like telling a Mohammedan that he must not go to 
Mecca, or a Boman Catholic that he must not go to 
Rome. Gilgal, again, was the first camp of the 
Children of Israel after they had crossed the Jordan. 
The twelve stones taken out of the bed of the Jordan 
were planted there as a perpetual memorial of their 
entrance into the Promised Land. The first Passover 
ever celebrated in the land of Canaan was celebrated 
there. The rite of circumcision was re-introduced 
there. Samuel, the prophet, constantly sacrificed 
there. Once more, Beer-sheba was scarcely less 
hallowed in the memory of the Israelites. Abraham 
dug a well there, and established a sacred service. 
There he lived for many years, and there their 
fathers, Isaac and Jacob, lived and worshipped. 

And yet here was a prophet of God disparaging 
sacred places, and sacred memories, and sacred rites, 
urging them no more to visit Beth-el, or Gilgal, or 
Beer-sheba ! What did he mean ? He meant that 
sacred places, and sacred memories, and sacred rites 
are nothing, and worse than nothing, when divorced 
from plain practical goodness. So he explains in 
language, which Isaiah afterwards quoted, “ I hate, I 
despise your feasts, and I will take no delight in your 
solemn assemblies. Yea, though ye offer me your 
burnt offerings and meal offerings, I will not accept 
them : neither will I regard the peace offerings of 
your fat beasts. Take thou away from me the noise 
of thy songs ; for I will not hear the melody of thy 


THE GOSPEL OF AMOS. 


187 


viols. But let judgment roll down as waters, and 
righteousness as a mighty stream” (v. 21 to 24). 
This was the second great doctrine of Amos. Sanctu- 
aries, services, ceremonies, sacraments are worse than 
nothing, are intensely hateful when separated from 
personal goodness. Long centuries afterwards, the 
Apostle John repeated the same great truth when 
he said, “ He that doeth righteousness is righteous ” 
(1 John iii. 7 ). 

This may seem to us, now, an obvious truism, but 
it is far from that. It was not even formally 
acknowledged in ancient times. Among the Greeks 
and Romans religion had nothing whatever to do 
with morality. Indeed the gods of these religions 
were themselves loathsomely immoral. Among the 
heathen generally, religion consists of certain rites, 
ceremonies, and services which the gods demand, and 
which have nothing whatever of an ethical nature. 
The distinctive peculiarity of the true religion is 
that Jehovah abhors all worship which is divorced 
from morality. What does He require of us except 
that we should do justly, love mercy, and walk 
humbly with Him ? The Jewish religion is dis- 
tinguished from every other except the Christian, by 
the emphasis with which it insists upon the Ten 
Commandments, 

A great deal of nonsense is talked and written 
in these days about the Oriental religions. An 
attempt is made by those who hate Christianity 
to envelop them in a halo of poetry, and senti- 


188 


ESSENTIAL CHRISTIANITY. 


ment, and virtue. But they deceive no man 
who visits the East with his eyes open. How 
striking was the testimony borne by Canon Barnett 
to the distinctive righteousness of the Christian 
religion, and to the awful extent that the sinfulness 
of sin is ignored by the other Oriental faiths. All 
Christians verbally acknowledge the ethical claims of 
Christianity, but, as a matter of fact, their acknow- 
ledgment in practice is little more than verbal. 
They, as a rule, restrict these claims to private life, 
and to the Lord’s Day. Ho one can honestly say 
that at this moment the majority of Christians in 
this country accept the ethical teaching of Christ in 
business, in politics, in pleasure, and in social inter- 
course. Vast fields of human interest and activity 
have never been evangelised. 

We, as well as the men of Samaria, require the 
teaching of Amos. The fashionable crowd of West 
London needs to be taught quite as much as those to 
whom Amos spoke, that we cannot compound with 
God, and that we cannot bribe God. What He asks 
is not lip-service but genuine goodness, not for- 
mality but reality. For my own part I confess I do 
not regret that so many immoral persons have given 
up the habit of attending a place of worship on 
Sunday. It is far better that those who lie, and 
gamble, and drink, and indulge in every kind of 
debauchery and profanity, should not add to their 
other enormities the sin of pretending to be Christian, 
pretending to pray, and pretending to sing the 


THE GOSPEL OF AMOS. 


189 


praises of God. By all means let us have done with 
sham and humbug. Let those who deliberately 
break the commandments of God never add insult to 
injury by appearing among His worshippers. Let 
them, indeed, repent of their sins, and then let them 
come at once. They will be heartily welcomed. 

But as Amos and Isaiah, and all the prophets of 
God have taught us, nothing is so intensely hateful 
and loathsome to God as that men should disobey 
Him, and then join in the worship of devout men as 
though they, too, were His servants. Such hypocrites 
outrage His sanctuaries by their presence. The 
plain, strong, wholesome words of Amos are as 
necessary to-day as they ever were. To quote once 
more the language of that remarkable book, “A 
Dead Man’s Diary,” from which I have already 
made one quotation, “ In our natural re-action 
from the conception of the vindictive God of past 
generations, we have come, in these days, to lose 
sight of the fact that our God is a chastening one 
. . . many of us pooh-pooh the thought of a hell 
at all, and speak of God as though He were a 
good-natured and weakly indulgent parent, on whose 
leniency we might lightly presume, forgetting that 
sin — unrepented sin — never can, and never must go 
unpunished.” 

The wholesome doctrine of Amos is still true and 
most timely. It is a part of the Christianity of 
Christ. It is an essential article of the true faith ; 
although, happily, in the fuller and more per- 


190 


ESSENTIAL CHRISTIANITY. 


feet creed of Christianity the terrible doctrines of 
Am os are supplemented, and modified, and perfected 
by revelations of the forgiveness and the love of God, 
revelations for which the world was not ripe when 
Amos preached in Samaria. But the knowledge of 
great and blissful truths, which were never fully 
known until Christ lived among men, must not con- 
ceal from us the stern facts and the terrible truths 
proclaimed by Amos. Indeed, without these facts 
the sacrificial life and death of Christ Himself would 
be inexplicable. I have ventured to call the truths 
which Amos proclaimed his “ gospel,” and they are 
worthy of that name. The news that God hates sin, 
and is intolerant of it, is good news for the whole 
universe, however distressing the immediate or 
even ultimate effect of it may be in the case of 
particular individuals. It is not a good thing that 
evil should go uncondemned and unpunished. All 
the agony that evil produces is a blessing in disguise. 
Both the conscience and the heart rejoice that evil 
involves misery. It would be appalling, it would be 
fatal to everything that is morally and spiritually 
most desirable, if it were otherwise. God is ever 
at the side of justice and righteousness. Blessed be 
God! 


THE GOSPEL OF HOSEA. 


“ How shall I give thee up, Ephraim ? . . . I will not execute 
the fierceness of mine anger, I will not return to destroy Ephraim : 
for I am God, and not man.” — Hosea xi. 8, 9. 


THE GOSPEL OF HOSEA. 

MOS was the first of the great literary prophets, 



and Hosea was the second. Amos was a plain, 
simple, untutored herdsman from the uplands of 
Judaea. Hosea was a man of wealth, rank, high cul- 
ture, and wide experience. He lived in Samaria, the 
great and pleasure-loving capital of the northern 
kingdom of Israel or Ephraim. He was a man of 
affairs, probably a courtier. He was familiar with 
the political changes of that epoch-making period. 
He understood foreign affairs, as well as the domestic 
history of his own race. He was familiar with the 
movements of Egypt on the one hand, and of Assyria 
on the other. He was highly educated, and also very 
sympathetic. His tender-heartedness, due, in part 
to his own domestic sorrow — the unfaithfulness of 
his wife — strikes the key-note of his teaching. It 
qualified him to understand God better than his 
predecessor Amos had understood Him. 

It enabled him to broaden, to deepen, and to 
sweeten men’s thoughts of the Eternal. He was 


0 


194 


ESSENTIAL CHRISTIANITY. 


full of the most delicate compassion. Not so 
self-assertive and vehement as Amos — he was 
more gentle, more considerate, more kindly. He 
wholly shared and echoed Amos’s horror and de- 
nunciation of sin, but he appealed more to the 
reason and to the heart of man. He was not 
satisfied with merely announcing the inseparable 
union between sin and punishment. He did not 
simply cry, “ Woe to the wicked ! Woe to the 
wicked! Woe to the wicked!” and then stop, 
adding no more. His sensitive heart dared to hope 
that punishment was remedial, corrective, and dis- 
ciplinary, rather than vindictive. He said to himself, 
“ Is there no hope for the wicked, nothing but 
punishment, no ray of light in the darkness, no glad 
message of love ? ” His reason, his tender conscience, 
his stricken heart rose up in rebellion against so 
hopeless an outlook. All that was best and kindest 
in his soul compelled him to believe that “ He who 
might the vantage best have took,” had “ found out 
the remedy.” 

He had no more faith than Amos had, in the 
efficacy of ceremonial services and external offerings ; 
but he had boundless faith in the heart of God. 
His Gospel hopes at last found memorable utterance 
in the great words of our text, which he dared to 
put into the mouth of God. He anticipated in part, 
in dim and trembling outline, the answer which the 
greatest of the prophets gave, eight hundred years 
later, to the pathetic question, “ Then who can be 


THE GOSPEL OF HOSEA. 


195 


saved ? ” “ With men it is impossible, but not with 
God: for all things are possible with God.” (St. 
Mark, x. 27). “ How shall I give thee up, Ephraim ? 
... I will not execute the fierceness of mine anger, 
I will not return to destroy Ephraim : for I am God, 
and not man!” “I am God, and not man” — not 
man, because more than man, better than man, 
kinder than man. 

That is the great, new, immortal argument of 
Hosea. Sometimes we are tempted to talk about 
God and the way in which He punishes sin, as 
though God were not so kind as man. But the 
truth is the exact opposite. God is not man, 
therefore “ His mercy endureth for ever ; ” therefore 
“ there is forgiveness with Him ; ” therefore “ as the 
heavens are higher than the earth, so are His ways 
higher than our ways;” therefore “if we confess 
our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us 
our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” 
Think of that. Let your mind play around that. 
Do not be afraid of what that line of thought in- 
volves and suggests. As a devout and gifted writer 
has recently argued in the Spectator, “there is a 
magnanimity in God that we can scarcely understand, 
much less reproduce.” There are hints and indica- 
tions of this divine magnanimity in some astounding 
suggestions of the Sermon on the Mount. There we 
find that if a man compels you to go a mile you are 
to go with him twain, that if he takes your coat you 
are to let him have your cloak also, that if he sipites 


196 


ESSENTIAL CHRISTIANITY. 


yon on one cheek you are to turn to him the other 
also. Those who would in any degree imitate the 
magnanimity of God must bless those who curse 
them, love those who hate them, and do good to 
those who despitefully use them and persecute them. 
Our Father in heaven does all this. He causes “ His 
sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sendeth 
rain on the just and the unjust.” Hosea had a 
glorious glimpse of that eternal, absolute, all- 
embracing, unchangeable love which finally shone 
in imperishable and indescribable splendour from 
the face of Jesus Christ. God sustains four 
relationships to us, and in each of these relation- 
ships He is “not man,” but immeasurably better 
than man. 

In the first place, He, and He alone, is our true 
Teacher and Prophet. We do need, we must have 
an infallible teacher. All wise men are incessantly 
engaged in contradicting one another, and, if they 
live long enough, in contradicting themselves. Long 
ages ago the golden thinker of Greece, Plato, realised 
that in the Babel confusion of the wise there could 
be no mental peace. He knew full well that as he 
had exposed the errors of his predecessors, so suc- 
ceeding thinkers would expose his. At last he cried 
out in despair that amid the ceaseless flux of human 
opinion there could be no certitude unless God from 
heaven spoke to us. What was a purely poetic and 
rhetorical outburst on the part of Plato, intended to 
illustrate the impossibility of certain and infallible 


THE GOSPEL OF HOSEA. 


197 


knowledge, is for us an accomplished fact, a simple 
matter of history. The day did come when the 
shadow of a mystic cloud fell upon the snow of 
Hermon, and out of that cloud came a Voice which 
said, “ This is my beloved Son, hear Him.” 

Ah, yes ! the Infallible Teacher has come at last. 
In Christ, and in Christ alone, we have absolute truth. 
Heaven and earth shall pass away, but not one jot 
or tittle of the authoritative teaching of Christ shall 
ever fail. His word is the eternal rock upon which 
we may build with absolute security the fabric of 
all our hopes. Ho storm will ever disturb that rock 
or the house that stands upon it. The shock of 
death will not move it, the searching light of eternity 
will reveal no flaw in it. Christ’s words, and Christ’s 
only, are “ words of eternal life.” All other words 
have their day and cease to be ; they are but guesses 
at the truth, or glimpses of the truth. They fade 
and pass into the light of fuller knowledge. But 
the teaching of Christ is the absolute teaching of 
God on earth and in heaven, in time and in eternity. 
He who is “ not man ” speaks and is the Truth. 

Again God is our King. As such He is “not 
man,” but more than man. He is the King of 
Kings. Carlyle saw the supreme need of the true 
king, the Koenig , the man who “can.” That true 
King, the only Eternal King, is Jehovah, the Un- 
changeable “ I Am,” “ the same yesterday, to-day, and 
for ever.” It was the revelation of the unchange- 
ableness of God to the children of Israel in Egypt, 


198 


ESSENTIAL CHRISTIANITY. 


which transformed them from a horde of dejected 
and miserable slaves into the most indestructible 
nation under heaven. Upon the unchangeableness 
of God they built all their national hopes. They 
knew that notwithstanding all appearances to the 
contrary, the promise made to their fathers Abraham, 
and Isaac, and Jacob, would never be forgotten, or 
fall to the ground. Inspired by that unquenchable 
confidence they crossed the Eed Sea ; and- inspired 
by that unquenchable confidence they live on still. 
At the darkest periods of history the unchangeable- 
ness of God is the fountain of new hope. 

When the Confederate armies were advancing 
upon Washington, after Bull’s Bun, and when it 
consequently seemed terribly probable that the 
emancipated slaves of the United States would once 
more be reduced to servitude, the coloured people in 
Washington held a prayer meeting in a large African 
church. It seemed as though their friend Abraham 
Lincoln would fail, and the agony of that vast 
audience was indescribable. The air was filled with 
loud lamentations and shrieks of despair. Suddenly 
a little African woman rushed into the aisle and 
shrieked out, in a shrill voice which rose above all the 
din of woe, “ Is God dead ? ” In a moment a deep 
silence fell upon the assembly. Every weeping man, 
every wailing woman was rebuked. They had for- 
gotten the unchangeable God of their salvation. God 
was not dead, and although the defenders of slavery 
were advancing rapidly towards Washington, God 


THE GOSPEL OF HOSEA. 


199 


would not fail them. The light of hope once more 
lit up their dusky faces, and by a spontaneous move- 
ment of confidence in the unchangeahleness of God 
they burst forth into the hallelujahs of anticipated 
victory. God was not dead, and the realisation of 
that great fact lifted them into the sunny atmo- 
sphere of serene confidence, as it had lifted the 
Israelites in Egypt. All power in heaven and on 
earth is given to Christ. Napoleon boasted in 
blasphemous language that “ God went with the big 
battalions,” but he did not say that after his proud, 
fatal march to Moscow. God ruleth over all, and 
because He is “ not man,” but more than man, the 
final triumph of justice and of righteousness is assured. 

Again, Christ is our Priest, and as such He is 
“not man” but more than man, and, therefore, 
unlike man, He has “ authority on earth to forgive 
sins ” — the authority of God Himself. Many of us 
can testify that He has forgiven ours. There are 
millions of men and women in all lands who have 
in their own hearts a blissful assurance of present 
salvation in Christ. We are no longer dependent 
upon the hopes, or aspirations, or intentions of human, 
fallible, and sinful priests. We have a Great High 
Priest who with His own blood made atonement for 
our sins, and now gives immediate and unmistakable 
Absolution to every sinner who confesses to Him. 

Lastly, the Eternal God is our Father, and as our 
Father He is “ not man ” but more than man. If a 
father pities his children, God pities us yet more. If 


200 


ESSENTIAL CHRISTIANITY. 


a mother loves her children, God loves us yet more. 
A mother can forget her own child, God can never 
forget us. Consider the great parable of the Gospel, 
so mistakenly called the “ Parable of the Prodigal 
Son,” a name that hides half its significance. It is 
really “ The Parable of the Loving Father,” and the 
second part of the parable, so frequently overlooked, 
expresses the magnanimous love of the father, if 
possible, even more than the first. How eagerly, 
how graciously that father welcomed the prodigal, 
but how tenderly he bore with the insolence and 
hardness of the elder brother : how gently and how 
graciously he won him too ! No words are strong 
enough to describe the love with which our Sovereign 
Father regards every one of us. He was known of 
old as the Almighty One, and as the Unchangeable 
One, but from the days of Hosea to the days of 
Christ He became increasingly known as the Loving 
One. At last the Fatherhood was finally and abso- 
lutely revealed in the Sonship of Jesus Christ. Then 
the children of men were able not only to hope and 
confidently to assume, as Hosea hoped and assumed, 
but to be absolutely certain that “God is love.” 
That was the crowning revelation, that was the very 
Gospel of the Gospel. 

“ So the All-Great is the All-Loving too, 

So through the thunder comes a human voice 
Saying, ‘ O heart I made, a heart beats here ! 

Face, my hands fashioned, see it in myself ! 

Thou hast no power, nor mayst conceive of mine ; 

But love I gave thee, with myself to love, 

And thou must love me who have died for thee ! ” 


THE GOSPEL OF HOSEA. 


201 


That is the Gospel of Hosea. No wonder such a 
writer is much quoted both in the Old Testament 
and in the New Testament. Browning is right in 
the glowing words I have just borrowed. We can- 
not conceive the force, the power of God. To us, 
notwithstanding all the wondrous discoveries of 
modern science, the power of God is still in its scope 
and immensity both unknown and unknowable. But 
His love, ah ! that we can understand. 

“ This, this is the G-od we adore, 

Our faithful unchangeable Friend 
Whose love is as great as His power, 

And neither knows measure nor end.” 













THE THEODICY OF HOSEA. 


“ Ephraim is joined to idols ; let him alone.” — Hosea iv. 17. 




THE THEODICY OF HOSEA. 

H OSEA prophesied just before the final overthrow 
of the Northern Kingdom of Israel, or Ephraim. 
The Ten Tribes were then transported by Assyria to 
the Far East, where they soon disappeared from the 
page of history to be, down to the present hour, the 
fascination and the perplexity of inquisitive stu- 
dents. On the eve of that appalling and final catas- 
trophe the people of Israel had sunk to the lowest 
depths of social and political degradation. Not that 
they were outwardly irreligious ; far from it. The 
showy ceremonies and the aesthetic formal worship 
flourished as they had never flourished before. But 
with this ostentatious, theatrical, and spectacular 
religionism was associated utter national depravity. 
Amid all their music, and sacrifices, and genuflec- 
tions, and prostrations, God was practically for- 
gotten. The monarch and the nobility amused them- 
selves with the vices of the people. The princes 
plunged into the grossest debauchery. The king 


206 


ESSENTIAL CHRISTIANITY. 


was the intimate friend of “ scorners.” Fashionable 
society was characterized by a widespread, all-pervad- 
ing cynicism. The very priests were mercenary and 
immoral. 

There was “no truth, nor mercy, nor know- 
ledge of God in the land” (Hosea iv. 1). There 
was “ nought but swearing and breaking faith, and 
killing, and stealing, and committing adultery ” (v. 2). 
At the same time, as I have already said, there was 
an ostentatious, nominal regard for Jehovah. Sacri- 
fices were offered in abundance (Hosea vi. 6, and viii. 
13). The popular cry was, “ My God, we Israel 
know Thee ” (Hosea viii. 2). In the midst of all 
this luxurious licentiousness and extreme religi- 
osity, Hosea, “ the Jeremiah of the Northern 
Kingdom,” uttered a stern and terrible message 
from God. It is expressed in the text, “Ephraim 
is joined to idols ; let him alone.” What does that 
mean ? 

It means that the dread calamity so often pre- 
dicted could not now be averted. It was useless to 
expostulate, to warn, to rebuke, to implore, to up- 
braid any more. The measure of iniquity was full 
to overflowing. Assyria was ready to march — was 
on the march. The thunderbolts of the holy and 
loving wrath of God were about to shatter a kingdom 
so “ religious,” so blasphemous, and so filthy. “ Eph- 
raim is joined to idols ; let him alone.” “ Let him 
alone,” it is too late, too late, to save Ephraim now. 
The irrevocable decree of God had gone forth ; the 


THE THEODICY OF HOSEA. 207 

long-delayed judgment was about to burst upon their 
guilty heads. 

But does this mean that Ephraim was doomed 
for ever, that there was no mercy on the other 
side of judgment, no room for hope, no ray of 
light in the darkness ? Far from it ; quite the con- 
trary. Ephraim was to be left alone because there 
was mercy, because there was hope, because nothing 
except terrible punishment would bring Ephraim to 
his senses and to his knees, because unparalleled 
calamity was the only experience that would open 
his eyes and his heart. " Let him alone ” to learn, 
in the only school in which such stubborn and obsti- 
nate wickedness can be taught, that the “way of 
transgressors is hard.” Terrible suffering would do 
what love, tenderness, and forbearance had utterly 
failed to accomplish. 

Hosea was taught this profound truth, and quali- 
fied for his public mission by a terrible domestic 
tragedy, which is disclosed in the first chapter of his 
prophecy. He married a woman named Gomer, who 
after she had borne him three children, became un- 
faithful to her marriage vows deserted him, sank 
into the foulest vice, and fell ultimately so low that 
she became a slave. Then, at last, in the school of 
shame, agony, and degradation she came to herself. 
Her eyes were opened ; she realised her folly, her 
wickedness, and the unquenchable love of her 
devoted, tender-hearted husband; and she said, “I 
will go and return to my first husband ; for then 


208 


ESSENTIAL CHRISTIANITY. 


was it better with me than now ” (Hosea ii. 7). As 
poor Hosea sat in his desolate home pondering the 

“ sorrow of all sorrows, death of deaths, 

The springs of blessing poisoned at their source, ’ ’ 

as he “ watched the ghastly ruins of his life,” he 
saw that even this terrible tragedy was not without 
its evidence of divine love to his wife, to himself, 
and to his race. He realised that this appalling 
experience was not blind chance, but the will of 
God, prompted by the love of God. 

“ Through all the mystery of my years 
There runs a purpose which forbids the wail 
Of passionate despair. I have not lived 
At random, as a soul whom God forsakes ; 

But evermore His Spirit led me on, 

Prompted each purpose, taught my lips to speak, 

Stirred up within me that deep love, and now 
Reveals the inner secret.” 

Yes ! his very agony revealed to him the love of 
God. He had to say at one time of his own wife, 
“ Let her alone ; she cares neither for me, nor for 
the children ; nothing but utter ruin will bring her 
to her senses.” 

So was it with Ephraim. So is it sometimes 
with the individual sinner. So was it with the 
Prodigal Son in the great parable. His father 
foresaw the ill-use which that youth would make 
of his fortune. He knew that the foolish and 
wayward boy would “ waste his substance in riotous 
living,” and bring himself to utter want and shame. 


THE THEODICY OF HOSEA. 


209 


But nothing except that terrible experience would 
have opened his eyes to the folly and wickedness 
of his self-assertion and self-reliance. Suffering 
must teach when love has failed to teach. Too often 
for us wilful and wayward men “ knowledge through 
suffering entereth ; ” and sometimes that suffering 
must be dire, prolonged and awful. This terrible 
fact is ever and anon brought home to all who are 
doing the work of Christ. I call to mind at this 
moment a light and wanton woman, whom my wife 
and I knew. For years we strove to save her from 
the effects of her own shameless levity. We rescued 
her from the streets again and again. But she 
always returned there ; until it was brought home to 
us at last, that like Gomer the wife of Hosea, she 
would refuse to be taught except in the most terrible 
of all schools. Nothing but prolonged agony and 
shame would awaken her infatuated soul to the 
loathsomeness and the deadliness of vice. 

Why do some sinners suffer so terribly ? Because 
there is no other way of bringing them to their 
senses. This is equally true of individuals, classes, 
communities, and races. The terrible, and some- 
times apparently excessive punishment which follows 
vice is really awakening, disciplinary, and remedial. 
When the secrets of all hearts are revealed it will 
be discovered that the unceasing love of God has 
been incessantly using the ministry of pain, both 
physical and mental, in order to save men from 
sin. God immeasurably prefers another way, the 
F 


210 


ESSENTIAL CHRISTIANITY. 


way of love, of joy, of brightness. But some men 
and women are so obstinate, so wilful, that, like 
Gomer the wife of Hosea, they must be taught by 
terrible suffering. Like Ephraim, they must be “ let 
alone ” until they have learned by awful personal 
experience that there is no rest, no peace, no joy, 
except through Christ in God. 

How heart-breaking, how maddening it is to dwell 
on the wasted and useless lives of men ! How blind 
they are to the lessons of history ! How deaf to the 
warnings of mercy ! How scornful to the heralds of 
woe ! When the young Prodigal, to whom I have 
already referred, had spent all and was in great 
want, he did not immediately confess his folly, and 
repent of his sin, and return to the home that was 
yearning to welcome him. No, he went and joined 
himself to a citizen of that country ; and he never 
realised the depth of his folly and misery until he 
was reduced to the degradation of feeding swine. 
Alas, how typical his infatuation is ! How insanely 
credulous men are that at some stage or other the 
ever-increasing disappointment of evil will be turned 
into satisfaction ! 

As the ancient Greeks believed that behind 
the blast and blight of the north wind dwelt the 
happy Hyperboreans, not exposed to its fury, but 
bathed in perpetual warmth and sunshine, so do the 
infatuated children of evil try to persuade them- 
selves that behind the storms and tempests of sin 
they will at last reach some happy experience, some 


THE THEODICY OF HOSEA. 


211 


real delight, some lasting gratification. But their 
insane hope is as groundless as the legendary dream 
of the Greeks. They will never get behind the 
north wind of disappointment, shame, and misery. 
The pleasures of sin do not increase, they daily grow 
less while the passion for indulgence grows stronger. 
Every step men take in the wrong direction brings 
them new pangs and new agonies. Everything 
grows in all respects worse, and worse, and worse. 
There can be no relief or respite except in turning 
right round and bravely retracing their steps. Their 
only hope lies in the fact that ever-increasing agony 
may bring them to their senses. 

And let it not be supposed for a moment that all 
this waste of time, and all this agony of soul will be 
of no consequence so long as they are saved at last. 
Alas ! we cannot think that. It would have been 
incalculably better if they had never gone astray. 
Evil is, in some respects, irremediable. The young 
Prodigal in the Gospel, whom I must quote again, 
for he is the type of all prodigals, was brought back 
to his father’s heart, and to his old position in the 
house, the shoes were put upon his feet, the ring of 
rank upon his finger, the robe of dignity upon his 
shoulders, and everything was done that could be 
done to restore to him the place of honour and joy 
he had so wickedly abandoned. 

But nothing could blot out the facts that he had 
wasted his substance in riotous living, and that he 
had fed the swine of sin. It could never be as it 


212 


ESSENTIAL CHRISTIANITY. 


would have been if he had not gone astray. Never 
could he forget the days of prodigality. Never 
could he recover the lost time, and the lost 
opportunities. Never could he undo the mischief 
of his deadly example to boon companions in the 
distant land of sin. I am very sorry to cause pain 
to those who have reached the prime of life or the 
decline of life, without submitting to Christ. They 
may be saved, the most aged sinners may be saved, 
but I cannot flatter them with the specious theory 
that so long as they are at last saved it does not 
matter that they have sown their wild oats, and 
that they have gone astray for many years. It 
does matter; it must matter; it will matter for 
ever. The utmost we can say is that the past is 
irrevocable, but the future is available. 

The dread fact I am compelled to name is only an 
additional reason why those who have lost so many 
opportunities, and wasted so much precious time 
should hesitate and procrastinate no longer. It is 
not yet too late — 


Death closes all ; but something ere the end, 

Some work of noble note may yet be done. 

With such solemn thoughts in mind I turn the more 
eagerly, the more anxiously to the young. You have 
not yet wasted your creative prime. You have not 
yet thrown away the greatest and the most inspiring 
of your opportunities. God forbid that you should 
refuse to learn wisdom except at the price of irre- 


THE THEODICY OF HOSEA. 


213 


parable loss and shameful agony. Listen to the 
gentle voice of Wisdom, and you need never hear the 
stern and indignant accents of Eebuke. Obey the 
gracious inspirations of Love, and you will be spared 
the inevasible penalties of Wrath. Let it never be 
said of you that you are so madly “joined to idols” 
that Divine Love itself has no alternative except to 
“ let ” you “ alone ” until you have learned in the 
school of failure, pain, disappointment, and ruin 
“that no idol is anything in the world, and that 
there is no God but one ” (1 Cor. viii. 4). 


I 

























THE VISION OF ISAIAH. 


“ Iii the year that King Uzziah died I saw the Lord sitting 
upon a throne, high and lifted up, and His train filled the temple. 
Above Him stood the seraphim : each one had six wings ; with 
twain he covered his face, and with twain he covered his feet, and 
with twain he did fly. And one cried unto another, and said, 
Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord of hosts : the whole earth is full of 
His glory.” — Isaiah vi. 1 to 3. 


THE VISION OF ISAIAH. 


I N our successive and chronological studies of the 
great literary prophets of the Jewish race we 
now reach the greatest of them all, Isaiah of Jeru- 
salem. He exhibited in sublime combination the 
splendid qualities, spiritual and intellectual, which 
were variously distributed among his brother pro- 
phets. As the illustrious Ewald declared, Isaiah “ is 
distinguished less by any special excellence than by 
the symmetry and the perfection of all his powers.” 
The secret of his undisputed pre-eminence is disclosed 
in the Beatific Vision of God, which was given him 
while yet in his teens. He was a pure, innocent, 
high-minded, devout youth, thoughtful and serious 
beyond his age. In the year that Uzziah’s long and 
prosperous reign came to an end, when everything 
ominously portended change, revolution, and disaster, 
Isaiah entered Solomon’s Temple to meditate on the 
ways of God and the affairs of men. As he stood 
there, wrapt in profound thought, the scene before 


218 


ESSENTIAL CHRISTIANITY. 


his eyes faded away, and he surveyed the eternal 
realities which that scene symbolised. 

‘ * He passed the flaming bounds of place and time ; 

The living throne, the sapphire blaze 
Where angels tremble while they gaze, 

He saw.” 

In lieu of the holy place, with its altar of sacrifice, 
and the gigantic cherubim woven on the veil, and 
the ark behind the veil, he saw Jehovah seated upon 
a throne, high and lifted up. In other words, Isaiah 
had an overwhelming vision or revelation of the 
Majesty and Holiness of God. What do we mean by 
Majesty ? The word is derived from the comparative 
degree (major) of the Latin word for great. It means 
greater power, and this because associated with office 
and authority. 

The sublime and supreme Majesty of Jehovah was 
symbolised in three ways. In the first place He sat 
upon a throne, " high and lifted up,” a throne above 
all other thrones, as He is King of kings and Lord of 
lords. In the second place the skirt of His royal 
robe “ filled the Temple.” A long train is significant 
of dignity and authority. The Speaker of the House 
of Commons, the Lord High Chancellor of England, 
and the Sovereign of the realm, all have trains and 
train-bearers to signify their exalted office. No office 
is so majestic as that of Jehovah; therefore His 
royal train “ filled the Temple.” In the third place 
young Isaiah noticed that the seraphim were stand- 
ing in that august presence, the attitude of respectful 


THE VISION OF ISAIAH. 


219 


reverence. More than that, each seraph with two of his 
wings covered his feet, deeming himself unworthy to 
serve one so great ; and with two of his wings he 
covered his face, deeming himself unworthy even to 
look at Jehovah. It would have been impossible for 
any symbolic vision to teach more unmistakably or 
more impressively the unapproachable Majesty of God. 

This vision also revealed the Holiness of God. 
Isaiah heard the seraphim chanting in ceaseless anti- 
phony the Holiness of God. The idea is exactly ex- 
pressed in the greatest hymn of the Latin Church : — 

“ To Thee cherubim and seraphim continually do cry.”* 

How significant it is that they did not sing 
“Mighty, mighty, mighty,” or “Wealthy, wealthy, 
wealthy,” or “ Wise, wise, wise,” but they sang “ Holy, 
holy, holy, is the Lord of hosts.” Principal Fair- 
bairn, in his extremely interesting addresses to the 
working men of Bradford, pointed out some years ago 
that the gods of the heathen were not holy, but 
positively vile. In the classical religions of Europe, 
which Christianity has superseded, religion and 
morals not only had no connection with one another, 
but were positively antagonistic. You could not 
have offered a more deadly insult to any old Boman 
gentleman than to insinuate that his character was 
“ godly,” that is, “ godlike,” for the gods of the Boman 
Pantheon were liars, thieves, adulterers, drunkards 
and scoundrels of the % most degraded type. The very 

* “ Tibi cherubin et seraphin incessabili voce proclamant.” 


220 


ESSENTIAL CHRISTIANITY. 


idea, of worshipping gods so infamous is almost in- 
comprehensible to us who, thanks to the Christian 
religion, instinctively and necessarily identify every- 
thing that is highest, and noblest, and best with the 
Deity. But it was only very slowly and with great 
difficulty that the true character of God was brought 
home to the human mind. It was probably in the 
vision of Isaiah that the holiness of God, as dis- 
tinguished from His power and His wisdom, was fully, 
unmistakably, and finally revealed to man. Isaiah 
consequently coins a new name for God : he speaks 
of Him as “ the Holy One of Israel.” 

The word “ Holy ” in Hebrew speech means “ se- 
paration ” from all evil. It is a lower conception of 
Holiness than that which is found in the Hew Testa- 
ment, especially in the writings of St. John. There 
we have not the Hebrew and negative idea in which 
so many Christians are still willing to remain, but the 
positive and glorious conception of a healthy Life. 
Holiness in the vocabulary of the Hew Testament is 
only another form of the word “ healthiness.” We 
speak of a “ healthy ” body and a “ holy ” soul, but 
we should express precisely the same idea if we 
reversed the synonyms and spoke of a “ holy ” body 
and a “healthy” soul. Christ has come that we 
may have “abundant life” (John x. 10), and we 
truly “ live ” when Christ lives in us : we drink His 
blood and eat His flesh, we receive life from Him as 
the branch receives sap from the vine. But until 
Christ, who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life, had 


THE VISION OF ISAIAH. 


221 


come, the Christian conception of holiness was im- 
possible. It was an immense step in advance when 
men were able to grasp even the Hebrew thought 
of separation from all evil. That is the changeless 
character of God. He always loathes and hates 
everything that is evil, He always loves and supports 
everything that is good. 

When the revelation of the Holiness of God burst 
upon young Isaiah, he exclaimed, “ Woe is me ! for 
I am undone ; because I am a man of unclean lips, 
and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean 
lips ” (v. 5). The first, inevitable result of a revela- 
tion of God is a realisation of our own sinfulness. 
And it is of much importance to remember that 
young Isaiah was innocent, virtuous, well-bred, well- 
disposed, with noble purposes, and lofty ideals. He 
had never been guilty of any vice, he had never 
brought a blush to his mother’s cheek or a tear to 
his father’s eye, he was all that human parent could 
desire ; and yet even he, in the light of God, realised 
his sinfulness and his spiritual need. The natural 
sinf ul ness of the human heart is quite independent 
of facilities for self-indulgence. Many of us owe our 
freedom from vice, and even from crime, not to any 
superior inbred virtue, but simply to happy circum- 
stances which have put us beyond the reach of dire 
temptations to which less privileged mortals are 
exposed. However innocent we are, however free 
from outward evil which the eye of man can discern, 
when we realise the Holiness of God, we echo the 


222 


ESSENTIAL CHRISTIANITY 


confession of Isaiah ; and nothing, let me add, except 
the revelation of the Holiness of God earn awaken a 
sense of Sin in our hearts. It is very little use for 
theologists to draw up dismal catalogues of human 
sins: it is only when God manifests His spotless 
Holiness that any one of us becomes truly and pro- 
perly conscious of personal uncleanness. 

Neither is it possible for us to become the efficient 
servants, either of God or of man, until we have 
realised our sinfulness and our need of Christ. But 
observe that the very moment Isaiah realised his 
sinfulness and confessed it, one of the seraphim 
“ flew ” on the swiftest wings of mercy, and touched 
the mouth of Isaiah with a hot stone, which he had 
taken with the tongs from off the altar of sacrifice. 
By this symbolic act he signified that Sin must be 
burnt out of us by self-renunciation. The root of sin 
is not mere outward transgression taking the form 
either of crime or of vice, but that inward and 
natural self-assertion which Buddha distinguished 
as “Trishna,” and which he truly declared must 
be destroyed before man can enter into rest. The 
fons et origo of sin was in the heart of the young 
prodigal when he said : “ Father give me the portion 
of thy substance that falleth to me ” (Luke xv. 12). 
Self-assertion, a desire to throw off the yoke of God, 
that is the source of all evil. On the other hand, 
the first condition of salvation and of service is self- 
surrender, self-renunciation. We must, in fact, be 
“ crucified with Christ,” we must submit as absolutely 


THE VISION OF ISAIAH. 


223 


to Him as He always submitted to the will of the 
Father, for Christ was essentially “ meek and lowly 
in heart.” That is to say, He was distinguished by 
qualities the exact opposite to self-assertion and 
self-reliance. The hot stone from the altar doubtless 
blistered the sensitive lips of Isaiah. It was a painful 
process, and the process of self-renunciation and 
self-surrender to Christ is often a most painful one. 

It is sometimes more distressing to the innocent, 
the virtuous, the educated, the well-bred, than to the 
grossest criminals and outcasts. Those who have 
felt the bitterness of crime and vice are often so 
weary of their miserable and dishonourable lives 
that when hope springs up in their hearts they are 
able, without difficulty and without delay, to throw 
themselves on the mercy of God, and to abandon 
themselves to Christ. But I have often observed 
that self-surrender is much more difficult on the 
part of those who have enjoyed the advantages of 
Christian culture. It is the one great difficulty of 
their life. I have known young men and young 
women, amiable, well-disposed, educated, attractive, 
who have passed through a speechless agony before 
they could conquer their natural proud self-assertion, 
and surrender themselves to Christ. I have literally 
seen perspiration bursting from the faces of men 
who longed to be Christians, but who could scarcely 
bring themselves to the point of submitting to 
Christ. This act of self-surrender, this abandonment 
of lawless independence often involves a terrible 


224 


ESSENTIAL CHRISTIANITY. 


struggle. Man will gladly make every sacrifice except 
that ; and yet until that is done all other sacrifices 
are useless. However young and however innocent 
we are, we must make the Great Eenunciation of 
self; we must place ourselves unreservedly in the 
hands of Christ. 

Notice, in the next place, that young Isaiah did 
not hear the call of God until he had made the great 
self-surrender. It was only after his lips had been 
touched, blistered, and purged by the hot stone from 
the altar of sacrifice that his ear was opened and he 
heard the voice of Jehovah saying, “Whom shall I 
send, and who will go for us ? ” It almost invari- 
ably, if not always, happens that we must make a 
full dedication of ourselves to God before He permits 
us to hear His voice, or to know His will. Men are 
allowed to go their own way, and to “lean unto 
their own understanding,” so long as they are in- 
different, or hostile, or half-hearted. God does not 
throw that which is holy to dogs; He does not 
admit men into the secret councils of Heaven, even 
respecting themselves and their own true mission, 
until they have been purged from sin by absolute 
self-surrender to Christ. God undoubtedly contem- 
plates some definite and noble sphere of service for 
everyone of us ; but no one of us will know what 
that sphere is until he has made an unconditional 
surrender of himself to Christ. Even then, you will 
observe, the call of God was indirect and suggestive 
merely. Isaiah heard the voice of the Eternal 


THE VISION OF ISAIAH. 


225 


saying, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for 
us?” God did not ask Isaiah point-blank to go. 
God did not address Isaiah directly and by name. 
He simply allowed Isaiah to overhear the conversa- 
tion. Why ? Because “ God loveth a cheerful 
giver,” because nothing is so entirely opposed to the 
nature of God as any approach to coercion in His 
service. He desires that whatever we do for Him 
should be done quite spontaneously. He never 
brings any pressure upon us. He who serves God 
at all must serve Him freely. It, therefore, con- 
stantly happens that God does not definitely declare 
His will to us, but He hints, suggests, tenderly 
insinuates, that a sphere of high service is open and 
that He wishes someone to volunteer for it. 

Then if we are fully consecrated to God and truly 
modest we answer as Isaiah answered, “Here am 
I : send me ” (verse 8). Observe how personal, 
how prompt, how manly that answer was. There 
is, I am sorry to say, very widespread in the 
Christian Church, a false and repulsive humility 
which leads some persons who imagine they are very 
good, to reply under such circumstances as these : 
“ I should be very glad to do it, but Mr. A. or Mrs. 
B. is so much better qualified than I that I dare 
not offer my services.” There is a large element of 
unreality and of pestiferous hypocrisy in this shrink- 
ing from forlorn hopes and heroic enterprises. It 
calls itself modesty, but in reality it is laziness, 
selfishness, cowardice. Isaiah was a mere youth, 
Q 


226 


ESSENTIAL CHRISTIANITY. 


perhaps only fifteen years of age, young, inexperi- 
enced. Some ignorant persons would have thought 
it very beautiful and modest on the part of this 
youth if he had said that he was much too young 
and too inexperienced to teach, he must himself be 
a learner for many years before he dared to open 
his mouth as a teacher, and that there were many 
aged, experienced and venerable servants of God who 
would he well able to do the work of God, and to do 
it so much better than he could. Happily Isaiah 
was not the victim of false modesty and unreal 
humility. He placed himself at once and unre- 
servedly at the disposal of God. The Eternal knew 
what he was fit to do, and if the mission of which God 
was speaking was one for which God could qualify 
him, he was eagerly ready to obey the voice of God. 

Let us all place ourselves this very moment as 
unreservedly and as absolutely at the service of God. 
Let me once more remind you that Isaiah was a 
noble and virtuous youth, innocent, pure, high- 
minded, serious, and yet he needed a full consecra- 
tion : but having received that he was qualified for 
the loftiest service. His youth was no hindrance, 
it was, in many respects and for many forms of 
service, a great advantage. Euskin has pointed out 
with much force that in the present day we are 
disposed to lavish all our resources and all our sym- 
pathies upon the degraded, and, humanly speaking, 
the worthless. Euskin would not wish to prevent 
us from doing our utmost for the most miserable 


THE VISION OF ISAIAH. 


227 


and abject of mankind, but he complains very 
properly that we sadly neglect the innocent and the 
best. Let us do what we can for the worst, but let 
us be equally energetic in making the best better 
still, and in availing ourselves of their innocence, 
and refinement, and virtue in the service of 
God. A quarter of a century ago a truly 
pestiferous delusion had possession of many Chris- 
tian minds. It was supposed that only reclaimed 
scoundrels could preach the Gospel successfully to 
scoundrels, and that the best agent for the evangeli- 
sation of the vulgar and degraded must be someone 
who is vulgar and who was degraded. There could 
be no greater mistake. The more cultured, the more 
refined, the more privileged we are in all respects, 
the better are we qualified for every kind of service 
among the unprivileged and the degraded. The 
greatest of all the prophets was a man of high rank, 
of great intellectual power, of brilliant culture, of 
spotless character. All that was good, and privi- 
leged, and superior in Isaiah only qualified him the 
more to fulfil his mission in the service of God and 
man. I appeal, therefore, most earnestly and most 
specially to the young, the amiable, the innocent, the 
most attractive of both sexes to give themselves up 
wholly and at once, as young Isaiah did, to the service 
of God. Let them place themselves unreservedly in 
the hands of Christ, and He will, without delay, 
make plain to them the kind of work which they are 
best qualified to do. 




ISAIAH’S DOCTKINE OF HUMILITY 


“The loftiness of man shall be bowed down, and the haughti- 
ness of men shall be brought low; and Jehovah alone shall be 
exalted in that day.” — Isaiah ii. 17. 


ISAIAH’S DOCTEINE OF HUMILITY. 


I FT our first study of the Book of Isaiah we saw 
that the Vision of God which was given to 
Isaiah when quite a youth, in the Temple at Jerusa- 
lem, made that young prophet realise vividly, over- 
whelmingly, the Holiness and the Majesty of God. 
We have dwelt at length upon the Holiness of 
God in its Hebrew significance of Separation from 
evil. To-day I ask you to realise how Isaiah’s sense 
of the Majesty of God dominated his political convic- 
tions and his political policy. The Holiness and the 
Majesty of God are inseparably intertwined, but for 
the purpose of studying the life and work of Isaiah 
we must regard them separately. In some respects 
it is more necessary to meditate upon the Majesty of 
God than upon the Holiness of God. With the 
Holiness of God we are all more or less familiar. 
Moreover, as I have already explained, the Hebrew 
conception of Holiness, separation from evil, has 
been superseded by a fuller and richer conception, 
which we owe especially to St. John — the abun- 


234 


ESSENTIAL CHRISTIANITY. 


dance of healthy Life. The negative thought of 
Isaiah, valuable as it is, is elementary and imper- 
fect, and must give way to the positive and more 
profound definition of “ St. John the Theologian.” 

But there never was a time when it was more 
necessary to dwell upon the unapproachable Majesty 
of God. One of the great dangers of a democratic 
and materialistic age is vulgar irreverence. In the 
extreme reaction from the tyranny and servility of 
the past, men are now in danger of cultivating the 
most foolish and mischievous excesses of self-asser- 
tion. Moreover the immense discoveries and achieve- 
ments of material Science in our own time have so 
intoxicated the superficial and the hasty that their 
heads are turned, and they are carried away by a 
grotesque vain-glory. One of the most conspicuous 
features of the time is irreverence. How, irreverence 
is always fatal to spirituality. In our approach to 
God there must be no presumption, no familiarity, 
no levity. He is our Father, and we cannot suffi- 
ciently thank Him that this characteristic truth of 
our faith has been recovered from the obscurity in 
which it had been buried for centuries ; but He is our 
Sovereign Father, He is King of kings, and Lord of 
lords, in Him we live and move and have our being. 
We must take no liberties with Him, we must 
approach Him with reverence and godly fear. Only 
the ignorant and the shallow are flippant and inso- 
lent. “ Pride, fulness of bread, and prosperous ease ” 
(Ezekiel xvi. 49) generate insolent irreverence, but 


isaiah’s doctrine of humility. 235 

the wise in all ages have been humble, and even the 
seraphim veil their faces in the presence of God. 

With the personal and private application of this 
truth most Christians are more or less familiar, but 
it is of equal importance to realise the necessity of 
humility in public life and in national affairs. In 
this connection notice the extreme significance of the 
fact that the great Vision came to Isaiah “ in the 
year that king Uzziah died” (Isaiah vi. 1). The 
reign of Uzziah had been exceptionally long, splendid 
and victorious. He had defeated the Philistines and 
dismantled their greatest fortresses. Amon and 
Edom acknowledged his authority. He was as re- 
nowned in peace as in war, he had greatly developed 
the internal resources of the country, and given 
an immense impetus to foreign trade. He lived in a 
blaze of military and commercial prosperity. The 
death of so influential and prosperous a king would 
naturally seem an irreparable calamity. But at that 
very time young Isaiah heard the seraphic choir 
chanting antiphonally, “ The whole earth is full of 
the Glory of Jehovah.” Men, even the greatest and 
mightiest of monarchs, may come and go, but the 
Lord God Omnipotent reigneth ever. The glory of 
man, however great, however far-reaching, is “but 
for a moment,” the Glory of God is omnipresent, 
unchangeable, eternal. The death of the great king 
Uzziah only accentuated the unapproachable Glory 
of the Living God. Uzziah was succeeded by J otham, 
who for a time emulated the great deeds of his father. 


236 


ESSENTIAL CHRISTIANITY. 


Both military and commercial prosperity continued 
apparently without a check. But the eye of the 
prophet saw the seeds of death in the personal 
luxury and social corruption which appear to be 
almost inseparable in this world of folly from com- 
mercial and military prosperity. The most dan- 
gerous symptoms of all were the extravagance and 
the wantonness of the Hebrew women. There were 
a great many “ fast ” and “ smart ” sets in Jerusalem. 
The privileged classes indulged in endless luxuries ; 
costly wines and sensuous Art were conspicuous in 
their domestic arrangements. They joined house to 
house and field to field until there was no room for 
the poor to live. On the one hand, they made the 
most profuse and costly provision for their own self- 
indulgence, and on the other they ground the faces 
of the poor. Atheism and idolatry, cynicism and 
superstition, scepticism and ceremonialism were 
strangely mingled, and flourished with equal vigour. 
The sanctuaries were crowded, the services were 
spectacular and ornate in the highest degree, and the 
clergy, rolling in wealth, enjoyed every species of 
worldly prosperity. At the same time while the 
sanctuaries were crowded and the national religion 
was apparently more popular and triumphant than 
ever, the very worshippers themselves were saturated 
with scepticism, and cynicism, and an utter disbelief 
in the personal intervention of God. They were 
delighted to attend theatrical functions organised by 
priests, but when a prophet of God like Isaiah 


isaiah’s doctrine of humility. 


237 


insisted upon the ethical claims of real religion they 
poured the greatest contempt upon him and his 
warnings. When Isaiah rebuked them in the name 
of the Living God they cried aloud with merry con- 
tempt, “ Let Him make speed, let Him hasten His 
work, that we may see it : and let the counsel of 
the Holy One of Israel draw nigh and come, that we 
may know it ! ” (v. 19.) 

Then Isaiah declared in terrible and sublime 
terms that this could not last. The Living God 
would resist, rebuke, and destroy pride. He pre- 
dicted, in the words of the text, that “ the loftiness 
of man shall be bowed down, and the haughtiness of 
men shall be brought low : and Jehovah alone shall 
be exalted in that day.” For a time there was no 
apparent result. The words of Isaiah seemed to 
beat the empty air and to end in nothing. It is 
often so: the rebuke of the true prophet is appa- 
rently impotent, all things continue as they were, 
the prosperity of the wicked is unchanged, the gay 
and the frivolous laugh the prophet to scorn — as the 
jeunesse dorte of Judah laughed at young Isaiah. At 
every period of human history the long-suffering of 
God waits, and waits, and waits, that man may have 
time to reflect and repent. God exhausts all the 
possibilities of divine mercy before the irrevocable 
word is spoken. Then it comes swift and relentless 
as lightning, and, “in one hour” (Eev. xviii. 10) 
some colossal Babylon is shattered for ever. As 
Victor Hugo said, in his awful impeachment of the 


238 


ESSENTIAL CHRISTIANITY. 


vile empire of Napoleon III., foul tyrannies are built 
upon ice : a swift river flows beneath that ice, but it 
is invisible and inaudible. The prophet speaks in 
vain, the infatuated authors and dupes of the Evil 
Thing stamp upon the ice, laugh the prophet to 
scorn, declare the foundation on which they build is 
hard and solid, and gives no sign of change — and all 
the time the swift river beneath is silently, cease- 
lessly destroying the foundation. There is no sign, 
it may be, of the approaching catastrophe until the 
ice has been worn very thin, and then, suddenly and 
unexpectedly, in all directions, the ice cracks, yields, 
gives way, sinks, and what seemed so solid is, “ in 
one hour,” swept away for ever. So it was in the 
age of Jotham. Isaiah’s warnings seemed to be 
mocked by the continued and unshaken prosperity of 
the kingdom. At last Jotham went the way of all 
flesh, and was succeeded by Ahaz, who is well 
described as “ a child of that spirit of the age against 
which Isaiah was waging war.” 

Then suddenly a storm-cloud rose above the 
horizon. Pekah, king of Israel, forgetful of all the 
claims of kinship and religion, formed an alliance 
with Rezin, king of Syria, to attack Judah. This 
infamous combination had been attempted, without 
success in the reign of Jotham, but now, under 
changed circumstances, it was ominous indeed. 
When the dread news reached the weak king and 
his people, we read, in the expressive language of 
Isaiah, that “ his heart was moved, and the heart of 


ISAIAHS DOCTRINE OF HUMILITY. 


239 


his people, as the trees of the forest are moved with 
the wind ” (vii. 2). It was as though France 
suddenly heard that Germany and Russia had 
formed an alliance to attack and destroy her. 
Terror-stricken beyond expression, Aliaz and his 
statesmen resolved to ask the protection of Tiglath- 
Pileser, king of Assyria. Isaiah intervened, and 
besought them passionately to put their trust not in 
the Assyrian despot but in the Living God. Here 
we see the effect of true humility. It realises the 
unapproachable Might and Majesty of God, and in 
the darkest hour relies upon Him and not upon 
man. Isaiah never forgot that the Glory of God 
had been revealed to him “in the year that king 
Uzziah died,” and he implored his fellow-country- 
men to trust in the Lord God Omnipotent, and not 
in the fatal protectorate of the Assyrian king. But 
Isaiah advocated the true Foreign Policy in vain. 
His fellow-countrymen, who in the hour of their 
material prosperity had been so proud, so self- 
assertive, so blasphemously insolent, now grovelled in 
the dust with abject terror, as the superstitious 
and the sceptical are so apt at such times to do. 
They placed themselves under the protection of 
Tiglath - Pileser. That ferocious Asiatic despot 
responded to their appeals, invaded Israel and Syria, 
destroyed the kingdom of Israel for ever, and cap- 
tured Damascus. At Damascus he received the 
homage of his vassals, and among those who 
prostrated themselves in the dust before him, as his 


240 


ESSENTIAL CHRISTIANITY. 


own triumphal inscription shows, was Ahaz, king of 
Judah. The rejection of the advice of Isaiah had, 
therefore, two disastrous and irreparable results. 
The kingdom and the people of Israel disappeared 
for ever, and the independence of Judah was 
destroyed. With intervals of momentary freedom, 
the kingdom of David was at an end. J udah con- 
tinued to be the degraded vassal of Assyria until 
it passed for an hour into the hands of Egypt, and 
then finally surrendered to Babylon, after which 
Judah followed Israel into distant captivity. Vain 
and haughty men are apt, in moments of peril, 
having no faith in God, to follow the most dis- 
honourable counsels, and to become the victims of 
the most contemptible panic. 

Ahaz was succeeded by Hezekiah, one of the best 
of the kings of J udah, who carried out a great Refor- 
mation. He re-opened the Temple, revived the Pass- 
over and the other sacred festivals of the faith, 
recovered much of the prosperity which Ahaz had 
lost, and brought back, for the last time, to his un- 
happy people a momentary gleam of national sun- 
shine. In the course of his reign worldly and, there- 
fore, shortsighted statesmen urged Hezekiah to seek 
deliverance from the yoke of Assyria by forming an 
alliance with Egypt. It might have been supposed 
that the awful* sufferings of the people would have 
taught the politicians wisdom, but party-politicians 
are almost incapable of being taught anything. The 
infatuation with which they cling to the wildest 


isaiah’s doctrine of humility. 241 

political delusions is incredible until we seriously 
study history. Most party-politicians are like the 
Bourbons, they learn nothing and they forget nothing. 
Happily in this instance the influence of Isaiah pre- 
vailed over that of the advocates of an insane and 
fatal foreign policy. “ Woe to them,” he exclaimed, 
“ that go down to Egypt for help, and stay on horses ; 
and trust in chariots because they are many, and in 
horsemen because they are very strong ; but they look 
not unto the Holy One of Israel, neither seek Je- 
hovah ” (c. xxxi. 1.) 

It was the old mistake — they trusted in material 
power instead of putting their trust in the living 
God. Had they realised the Majesty of the 
Eternal they would have leaned neither upon 
Assyria nor upon Egypt, and they would never have 
imagined that Egypt could deliver them. Their 
folly was like the folly of the Italians, w T ho were 
everlastingly hankering after the intervention of 
France to deliver them from the tyranny of Austria. 
But at last Mazzini, a true political prophet, taught 
them that Italy could never be emancipated until 
she relied upon herself and the justice of her cause. 
In the case before us the political counsels of Isaiah 
happily prevailed, and Judah was saved from im- 
mediate overthrow and ruin. The king refused 
to take the mad advice of the politicians, and 
consequently when Egypt and Samaria were over- 
whelmed by the armies of Assyria, Judah was 
untouched. 


R 


242 


ESSENTIAL CHRISTIANITY. 


Shortly afterwards Sennacherib succeeded to the 
throne of Assyria, and this event was followed by a 
great change in the heart of the Assyrian empire itself. 
Merodach-Baladan of Babylon revolted, and the inter- 
nal strife of the Assyrian empire encouraged Hezekiah 
to assert his independence. Sennacherib invaded 
Judah, and as the assertion of independence was 
futile, Hezekiah submitted, and paid a heavy tribute. 
Thereupon Sennacherib demanded the surrender of 
Jerusalem itself, and threatened the extremest conse- 
quences on his return from the Egyptian campaign, 
if Hezekiah did not obey. Then Hezekiah, instead 
of trusting in worldly politicians, entered the Temple 
and laid the miseries and perils of his people before 
God. He sought guidance from “ the Holy One of 
Israel,” and Isaiah, inspired by the Spirit of God, bid 
the king of Israel put his trust in Jehovah, and 
refuse to surrender Jerusalem to the king of 
Assyria. 

This was the greatest moment in the great career 
of Isaiah. In sublime and inspiring words he 
declares that God will deliver Jerusalem from the 
insolent threats of Sennacherib. You may read 
his words in the second part of the thirty-seventh 
chapter of Isaiah. As the people were now at last 
willing to put their trust in Jehovah, Jehovah would 
deliver them. He would prove a mightier A lly than 
all the cavalry of Egypt. The result of their reliance 
on Jehovah, and of His intervention at that critical 
hour is well known to all Englishmen, as it has been 


isaiah’s doctrine of humility. 


243 


immortalised in the familiar words of a great English 
poet : — 

The Assyrian came down like the wolf on the fold, 

And his cohorts were gleaming in purple and gold ; 

And the sheen of their spears was like stars on the sea, 

When the blue wave rolls nightly on deep Galilee. 

Like the leaves of the forest when summer is green, 

That host with their banners at sunset were seen ; 

Like the leaves of the forest when autumn hath blown, 

That host on the morrow lay wither’d and strown. 

For the Angel of Death spread his wings on the blast, 

And breathed in the face of the foe as he pass’d ; 

And the eyes of the sleepers wax’d deadly and chill, 

And their hearts but once heav’d, and for ever grew still. 

And the widows of Ashur are loud in their wail, 

And the idols are broke in the temple of Baal ; 

And the might of the Gentile, unsmote by the sword, 

Hath melted like snow in the glance of the Lord ! 


This astonishing incident has one and the same 
moral for Jew, and Assyrian, and Englishman. It 
is a great political lesson for all time. English- 
men are too apt to trust in their armies, their iron- 
clads, their money-bags. But all history is against 
them. The mightiest conquerors, in the very hour 
of their uncontested supremacy, have been suddenly 
smitten to the ground for ever. As Froude and 
Matthew Arnold and all profound students of 
human history have unanimously declared, the one 
lesson taught on every page of recorded time is 
the lesson enforced in the text: “The loftiness of 
man shall be bowed down, and the haughtiness of 


242 


ESSENTIAL CHRISTIANITY. 


Shortly afterwards Sennacherib succeeded to the 
throne of Assyria, and this event was followed by a 
great change in the heart of the Assyrian empire itself. 
Merodach-Baladan of Babylon revolted, and the inter- 
nal strife of the Assyrian empire encouraged Hezekiah 
to assert his independence. Sennacherib invaded 
Judah, and as the assertion of independence was 
futile, Hezekiah submitted, and paid a heavy tribute. 
Thereupon Sennacherib demanded the surrender of 
Jerusalem itself, and threatened the extremest conse- 
quences on his return from the Egyptian campaign, 
if Hezekiah did not obey. Then Hezekiah, instead 
of trusting in worldly politicians, entered the Temple 
and laid the miseries and perils of his people before 
God. He sought guidance from “ the Holy One of 
Israel,” and Isaiah, inspired by the Spirit of God, bid 
the king of Israel put his trust in Jehovah, and 
refuse to surrender Jerusalem to the king of 
Assyria. 

This was the greatest moment in the great career 
of Isaiah. In sublime and inspiring words he 
declares that God will deliver Jerusalem from the 
insolent threats of Sennacherib. You may read 
his words in the second part of the thirty-seventh 
chapter of Isaiah. As the people were now at last 
willing to put their trust in Jehovah, Jehovah would 
deliver them. He would prove a mightier Ally than 
all the cavalry of Egypt. The result of their reliance 
on Jehovah, and of His intervention at that critical 
hour is well known to all Englishmen, as it has been 


isaiah’s doctrine of humility. 243 

immortalised in the familiar words of a great English 
poet : — 

The Assyrian came down like the wolf on the fold, 

And his cohorts were gleaming in purple and gold ; 

And the sheen of their spears was like stars on the sea, 

When the blue wave rolls nightly on deep Galilee. 

Like the leaves of the forest when summer is green, 

That host with their banners at sunset were seen ; 

Like the leaves of the forest when autumn hath blown, 

That host on the morrow lay wither’d and strown. 

For the Angel of Death spread his wings on the blast, 

And breathed in the face of the foe as he pass’d ; 

And the eyes of the sleepers wax’d deadly and chill, 

And their hearts but once heav’d, and for ever grew still. 

And the widows of Ashur are loud in their wail, 

And the idols are broke in the temple of Baal ; 

And the might of the Gentile, unsmote by the sword, 

Hath melted like snow in the glance of the Lord ! 


This astonishing incident has one and the same 
moral for Jew, and Assyrian, and Englishman. It 
is a great political lesson for all time. English- 
men are too apt to trust in their armies, their iron- 
clads, their money-bags. But all history is against 
them. The mightiest conquerors, in the very hour 
of their uncontested supremacy, have been suddenly 
smitten to the ground for ever. As Froude and 
Matthew Arnold and all profound students of 
human history have unanimously declared, the one 
lesson taught on every page of recorded time is 
the lesson enforced in the text: “The loftiness of 
man shall be bowed down, and the haughtiness of 


244 


ESSENTIAL CHRISTIANITY. 


men shall be brought low, and Jehovah alone shall 
be exalted in that day.” 

Let us not forget that this text has a personal 
lesson as well as a political one. It is true individu- 
ally as well as collectively. As Isaiah declares, “ the 
meek also shall increase their joy in Jehovah, and 
the poor among men shall rejoice in the Holy One 
of Israel ” (c. xxix. 19). The meek and the humble 
are dear to God. He will allow no real evil to 
befall them. But to self-will, self-assertion, self- 
reliance, pride, irreverence, insolence, as they were 
found incarnated in mighty Sennacherib, God said 
in the sublime prophecy of the thirty-seventh 
chapter, to which I have already referred you, “I 
know thy sitting down, and thy going out, and 
thy coming in, and thy raging against me. Because 
of thy raging against me, and for that thine 
arrogancy is come up into mine ears, therefore 
will I put my hook in thy nose, and my bridle in 
thy lips, and I will turn thee back by the way by 
which thou earnest” (c. xxxvii. 28, 29). And we 
know that it was so. Some mysterious visitation 
of God, it may be a pestilence, fell upon the vast 
victorious host of Assyria. “And the angel of 
Jehovah went forth, and smote in the camp of the 
Assyrians a hundred and fourscore and five thou- 
sand: and when men arose early in the morning 
behold, they were all dead corpses ” (c. xxxvii. 36). 
They “ melted like snow in the glance of the 
Lord.” Helpless and humiliated the boastful Senna- 


ISAIAH’S DOCTRINE OF HUMILITY. 


245 


eherib crept back to his distant capital, and twenty 
years later was murdered by his own sons “as he 
was worshipping in the house of Nisroch his god ” 
(c. xxxvii. 38). So was Jerusalem delivered from an 
apparently irresistible foe when the people “ walked 
humbly with God.” And to all those, whether men 
or nations, who truly and wisely humble themselves 
before Him, He ever says, “ Come unto me and I will 
give you rest.” 







ISAIAH'S FORECAST OF THE GOLDEN AGE 


“ In that day shall Israel be the third with Egypt and with 
Assyria, a blessing in the midst of the earth : for that the Lord 
of hosts hath blessed them, saying, Blessed be Egypt my people, 
and Assyria the work of my hands, and Israel mine inheritance.” 
Isaiah xix. 24 & 25. 


ISAIAH’S FORECAST OF THE GOLDEN AGE. 


T HERE is probably not a single passage in the whole 
Bible which illustrates more overwhelmingly 
than this, what the modern reader loses by being 
ignorant of Biblical geography and history. To most 
ordinary readers this text must be almost meaning- 
less and entirely uninteresting; but to those who 
have the elementary knowledge of sacred geography 
and history which enables them to put this passage 
into its proper historical setting, it is among 
the most audaciously sublime and transcendently 
glorious ever written. When these words were 
penned Egypt and Assyria were the two great world- 
empires continually struggling with one another for 
supremacy. Little Palestine lay between them, just 
as little Switzerland lies between France and 
Germany to-day. The proximity and rivalry of 
the Egyptian and the Assyrian empires led to cease- 
less intrigues and war, deadly international hatred, 
and incessant political change. But the day will 
come, cried Isaiah, in one of the loftiest prophetic 
moods, when strife will absolutely cease, when there 


250 


ESSENTIAL CHRISTIANITY. 


will be unbroken international good-will between 
the three nations which are now cursed by ceaseless 
rivalry, hatred, and bloodshed. War and misery 
will be succeeded by universal peace and universal 
happiness. Isaiah did not say, as the Society of 
Friends says, that war is always wrong, but he did 
say that it is a great evil, and that at last it will be 
utterly and for ever abolished. This passage when 
understood is a vivid and impressive forecast of the 
Golden Age of all-embracing peace and good-will. 

It is intensely interesting and instructive to trace 
the line of thought by which Isaiah reaches hi. 
astonishing conclusion. He says that all these 
delightful results will spring out of the Holiness of 
God. That very attribute of Jehovah which will, in 
the first instance, inevitably bring upon Assyria, 
Egypt, and Israel immense and overwhelming 
disasters, will also ultimately overrule all these 
disasters for their highest good. In his beautiful, 
poetic way he declares that as life remains in 
the stump of an oak-tree which has been felled, 
throwing up fresh shoots in the vital spring time ; 
so shall “ the holy seed ” be left in the “ stock ” of 
the Hebrew race to grow and flourish once more 
after the unworthy and wicked of that race have 
been exiled and destroyed. “ A remnant shall 
remain”; “a holy remnant.” “It shall come to 
pass, that he that is left in Zion, and he that 
remaineth in Jerusalem, shall be called holy ” 
(iv. 3). When both Egypt and Assyria have done 

$ 


ISAIAH’S FORECAST OF THE GOLDEN AGE. 251 

their worst and the deluge of misery abates, it will 
be found that God has preserved “ a holy remnant.” 
Then Jerusalem shall flourish once more, “a holy 
habitation,” and the tranquil joy of the whole earth. 
Of the restored city of God in that millennial age 
Isaiah draws in two sentences a glowing and bliss- 
ful picture. “ The inhabitants shall not say, I am 
sick ; the people that dwell therein shall be forgiven 
their iniquity” (xxxiii. 24). There shall be no 
pain, no sin, no misery, but a healthy mind in a 
healthy body, life in every phase, full, rich and joyous. 
Every tear shall be wiped from every eye, every 
want shall be supplied, every heart shall be radiant 
with joy ; “ the meek also shall increase their joy in 
Jehovah, and the poor among men shall rejoice in 
the Holy One of Israel” (xxix. 19). “And in that 
day shall the deaf hear the words of the book, and 
the eyes of the blind shall see out of obscurity and 
out of darkness” (xxix. 18). In that bright age 
all shall be “beautiful and glorious, excellent and 
comely.” Nowhere “ shall they hate or destroy, for 
the earth shall be full of the knowledge of Jehovah 
as the waters cover the sea.” And then, as the 
crowning blessing, this glorious Social Millennium 
shall not be limited to Israel. It shall be shared by 
Egypt and Assyria, now the traditional and secular 
foes of Israel but then her allies and friends. 

Plato tells us somewhere that the gods from time 
to time strengthened, refreshed and delighted then- 
souls by solemnly beholding the Eternal Ideas of 


252 


ESSENTIAL CHRISTIANITY. 


Goodness and Beauty. It is well that we, too, amid 
the weary toil, the discouragements and the disap- 
pointments of the present, should ever and anon 
strengthen and inspire ourselves by contemplating 
“ the eternal hope of a Divine Kingdom upon earth.” 
We live too much in the actual. This world, as 
Wordsworth declared, is “ too much with us.” We 
ought far more frequently to contemplate the ideal, 
and to salute afar off the Golden Age of the pro- 
phets. Happily, our Golden Age, unlike that of the 
classic poets of Greece and Italy, is not in the reced- 
ing past but in the advancing future. In the narrow 
round and daily drudgery of ordinary life, there is a 
ceaseless tendency to parochialism, to commonplace- 
ness and to pessimism. The greatest and most 
brilliant of all the characteristics of the poet Brown- 
ing was his healthful, inspiring and ennobling 
optimism. Whitman is also a great benefactor of 
our age, because he has exerted an exhilarating influ- 
ence over many whose souls were in danger of being 
dwarfed and withered by a cynical scepticism. The 
glowing hopes of the best Socialists are a rich 
possession and an effective antidote to the fin de sibcle 
indifferentism and despair of multitudes. But we 
Christians have all that the best Socialists possess and 
very much more. The Bible is the most hopeful book 
ever written, and its hopefulness is entirely confirmed 
and brilliantly illustrated by the ultimate results of 
modern science. Professor Drummond has just 
issued a long-promised volume on the application of 


ISAIAHS FORECAST OF THE GOLDEN AGE. 253 

the crowning theory of evolution to human life. 
“The Ascent of Man” is an epoch-making book. 
In this splendid and fascinating work Professor 
Drummond, for the first time in human history, uses 
all the wonderful resources of modern science in 
order to contemplate human life as a whole, and to 
give us a complete outline of the gradual evolution 
of man from the lowest embryological forms up to 
the glorious creature who is the paragon of animals 
and the masterpiece of creation. Every novel ever 
written and every drama ever acted are tame and 
commonplace in comparison with the record of the 
way in which God has made man. The exact and 
complete history of the “Ascent of Man” is the 
great mystery which, for wise ends, God has hidden 
until the closing decades of the present century. 
Now, for the first time, He discloses to us the mar- 
vels of His created love. “ 0, the depth of the riches 
both of the wisdom and the knowledge of God!” 
The distinctive, and by far the most important, 
feature of Professor Drummond’s great work is the 
demonstration it contains, that the whole scientific 
world has gone astray through a one-sided applica- 
tion of the theory of evolution. 

It has been practically assumed by everybody that 
there is only one principle of evolution, namely, “ the 
struggle for life.” Professor Drummond points out 
that there is a second factor, “ the struggle for the 
life of others,” which plays an equally prominent 
part. He holds that these two functions run a 


254 


ESSENTIAL CHRISTIANITY. 


parallel course from the very dawn of life, and are 
involved in the fundamental nature of protoplasm 
itself. It is impossible to exaggerate the importance 
of this profound criticism. All life is the product, 
not of one influence, but of two. “The first, the 
Struggle for Life, is throughout the Self-regarding 
function ; the second, the Other-regarding function. 
The first, in lower Nature, obeying the law of self- 
preservation, devotes its energies to feed itself ; the 
other, obeying the law of species-preservation, to feed 
its young. While the first develops the active virtues 
of strength and courage, the other lays the basis for 
the passive virtues — sympathy and love. In the 
later world one seeks its end in personal aggrandise- 
ment, the other in ministration. One begets compe- 
tition, self-assertion, war; the other unselfishness, 
self-effacement, peace. One is Individualism, the other 
Altruism.” “The first step,” continues Professor 
Drummond, “ in the reconstruction of Sociology will 
be to escape from the shadow of Darwinism, or, 
rather, to complement the Darwinian formula of the 
Struggle for Life by a second factor, which will turn 
its darkness into light,” that second factor being 
“ the struggle for the life of others,” which is coeval 
with the “ struggle for life,” and w T hich redeems the 
“struggle for life” from its intolerable selfishness. 
Professor Drummond has rendered imperishable ser- 
vice by calling the attention of mankind to the miss- 
ing factor in current social theories. It is an amaz- 
ing confirmation of the optimism of the Hebrew 


isaiah’s forecast of the golden age. 255 

prophets. The history of man is now proved, by 
natural science as by revelation, to be physically, 
mentally, and spiritually the “ ascent ” of man, and 
the ascent proceeds at an accelerating pace. At the 
earlier and lower stages of human progress the Self- 
regarding factor was predominant, but now the 
Altruistic factor becomes more and more supreme. 
Professor Drummond points out the profound and 
delightful significance of the fact that, as Evolution 
proceeds, “ the struggle for the life of others ” waxes, 
and “the struggle for life” wanes. Unselfishness 
prevails more and more over selfishness, and the 
human race is visibly advancing toward a social goal 
in which every man, like Jesus Christ, will seek, not 
his own, but his neighbour’s good. 

And this brings us to the other great truth ex- 
pressed in the prophetic hopes of Isaiah. His 
glorious forecasts centre around an expected Messiah 
a righteous and mighty King of the House of David, 
who was to be the appointed instrument of the 
holy and lovely will of God. “ Behold a King shall 
reign in righteousness,” and “ His name shall be 
called Wonderful, Counsellor, Mighty God, Ever- 
lasting Father, Prince of Peace. Of the increase of 
His government and of peace there shall be no end, 
upon the throne of David, and upon His kingdom, 
to establish it, and to uphold it with judgment and 
with righteousness from henceforth, even for ever ” 
(ix. 6 & 7). All these great utterances have been 
so conspicuously fulfilled in Christ that it is almost 


256 


ESSENTIAL CHRISTIANITY. 


impossible to realise that Isaiah never interpreted 
his own words in that precise and definite way. 
No doubt he “ sought and searched diligently ” “ what 
time, or what manner of time the Spirit of Christ 
which was in him did point unto” (1 Peter i. 11); 
but he was taught, as St. Peter says, that his 
prophecies were not “ unto himself,” but unto future 
generations, unto us. What to him was vague and 
uncertain, to us has become clear and unmistakable. 
Moses and all the prophets testified concerning 
Christ. He suffered, and died, and rose again, and 
is in the midst of us now, to fulfil all those prophetic 
hopes. His Kingdom spreads from day to day. He 
passes from victory to victory. Shall we share His 
glorious conflict and his divine joy? I appeal es- 
pecially to young men and to young women. Turn 
aside from everything that is small, and superficial, and 
vulgar, and commonplace, and evanescent. Conse- 
crate your lives and your entire being to the service 
of the Divine King, and to the divine work of 
realising on earth the glorious prophecies of Isaiah. 
“ It is high time for you to awake out of sleep : for 
now is salvation nearer to us than when we first 
believed. The night is far spent, and the day is at 
hand : let us therefore cast off the works of darkness, 
and let us put on the armour of light” (Romans 
xiii. 11 & 12). When young Augustine read those 
words, he resolved to yield himself wholly to Christ. 
May the Spirit of Christ inspire you with a similar 
resolution now! 


MICAH’S IDEAL OF RELIGION. 


“ He hath shewed thee, 0 man, what is good: and what doth 
the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and 
to walk humbly with thy God ? ” — Micah vi. 8. 


MICAH’S IDEAL OF RELIGION. 


I SAIAH of Jerusalem and Micah the Morashtite 
lived at the same time, but present a striking 
contrast. Isaiah was by birth an aristocrat, if not 
of royal descent; Micah was a yeoman from an 
obscure village. Isaiah was a statesman, Micah an 
evangelist. Isaiah addressed himself to the largest 
and highest political issues, Micah dealt with social 
morality and personal religion. It is not without a 
significance that at first, though not ultimately, the 
fervent and pointed preaching of Micah was more 
effective than the majestic statesmanship and 
sublime teaching of Isaiah. An intensely interest- 
ing passage in the Book of Jeremiah (xxxvi. 18) 
reveals the important fact that the famous Deforma- 
tion of Hezekiah was the direct result of the preach- 
ing of Micah. This fact happily reminds us that 
those of us who do not possess Isaiah’s exalted rank, 
and great qualities, and magnificent style, neverthe- 
less need not despair of achieving immense reforma- 
tions if we emulate the intensity, the enthusiasm 


260 


ESSENTIAL CHRISTIANITY. 


the fearlessness of Micah. Isaiah and Micah agree 
absolutely in their essential teaching, but each con- 
templates the present and the future from his own 
standpoint. Micah, a humble-minded countryman, 
realised the special wickedness of the two great 
Hebrew capitals, Jerusalem and Samaria. He drew 
a graphic picture of the social vices of the time. 
The judges were venal, the princes corrupt, the 
prophets mercenary ; mammonism and luxury were 
rampant; the rich coveted fields and houses, and 
were ever extending their estates, crushing the poor, 
and divorcing the people from the soil. Those in 
authority remorselessly fleeced and flayed the hap- 
less people. On the other hand, there was a most 
extravagant expenditure. The Temple and the City 
were made magnificent. But Micah, instead of 
being carried away by this architectural splendour, 
saw in the sanctuary and in the palaces of the privi- 
leged the blood of the disinherited, the exploited, 
the down-trodden poor. “ They build up Zion,” he 
cries out, “with blood, and Jerusalem with iniquity” 
(c. iii., 10). 

Like Isaiah he looked confidently for a personal 
Saviour to establish the principles of peace ; a personal 
Saviour of the house and lineage of David, who, he 
added significantly, shall not come from Jerusalem, 
the recent luxurious residence of the royal family, 
but from Bethlehem in Judaea, the ancient home of 
David. All who resist Him shall be destroyed, and 
all who submit to Him shall enjoy unending pros- 


micah’s ideal of religion. 261 

perity and peace, “every man under his vine and 
under his fig tree; and none shall make them 
afraid ” (iv. 4). These prophetic facts have in some 
respects been so literally fulfilled in the life of our 
Lord Jesus Christ, that we are in danger of over- 
looking their wider, later, and ultimate fulfilment. 
It is no wonder, let me say parenthetically, that the 
Book of Micah was a favourite book with our Lord 
Himself. Some of His memorable phrases are quota- 
tions from Micah. Many will be surprised to hear 
that the following familiar passage occurs in the 
Book of Micah : “ The daughter riseth up against her 
mother, the daughter-in-law against her mother-in- 
law ; a man’s enemies are the men of his own house ” 
(vii. 6). There is no more interesting or in- 
structive study, as we have had many occasions to 
notice, than the study of our Lord’s use of the Old 
Testament. But to resume our analysis of the Book 
of Micah, after predicting the advent of the Messiah 
and happy Messianic days, Micah foretells that the 
final triumph of God will, nevertheless, be preceded 
by terrible punishments upon all who provoke His 
anger. “What shall I do then,” says the typical 
worldly religionist to Micah; “what shall I do to 
avert the wrath of the Eternal with which you 
terrify me ? Wherewith shall I come before Jehovah, 
and bow myself before the high God ? Shall I come 
before Him with burnt offerings, with calves of a 
year old ? Will Jehovah be pleased with thousands 
of rams, or with ten thousands of rivers of oil? 


262 


ESSENTIAL CHRISTIANITY. 


Shall I give my first-born for my transgression, 
the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?” 
(vi. 6 & These are still the questions asked 
by worldly and fashionable religionists, when they 
are agitated and irritated by the prophets of God. 
They say in effect, “ You are very unreasonable. The 
Temple is crowded, the ritual is splendid, the music 
and singing are as perfect as they can be; what 
more do you want? What does your angry God 
desire ? ” cries the worldly religionist. “ Shall I bow 
before Him in His sanctuary ? Shall I devote large 
sums of money to the church and to His service ? 
Shall I offer Him my son as a living sacrifice as 
is done by nations beyond the frontier ? Does He 
demand some costly tribute ? Shall I slake His rage 
with blood ? What shall I do ? What shall I give 
Him? What pain shall I inflict upon myself in 
order to appease Him ? ” Then comes the complete, 
the unchangeable, the everlasting answer : “ He hath 
shewed thee, 0 man, what is good ; and what doth 
Jehovah require of thee, but to do justly, and to love 
mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God ? ” God 
desires nothing except Justice, and Mercy and 
Humility. There is only one way to please Him. 
He seeks not cash but conduct, not external cere- 
mony but internal character. 

First of all, He requires us to “ do justly,” not to 
talk about it, not to profess it, but to do it. We are 
coming more and more to see that Justice really 
means that ct social justice” which Tennyson pre- 


micah’s ideal of religion. 263 

dieted would spread more and more — not technical, 
legal “justice,” which is often the height of injustice. 
Our laws have hitherto been made and enforced by 
the privileged classes, and are a most imperfect 
reflection of the absolute justice of God. So far 
short do they fall of that Justice, which the un- 
sophisticated and the unconventional instinctively 
crave, that nothing is more characteristic or, in some 
respects, more ominously characteristic of our time, 
than a deep and widespread sense of injustice. It 
may please the flatterers of power to say “Peace 
peace,” when there is no peace. But no one who lives 
and moves among the masses of the people can be 
ignorant of the fact that the immense majority believe 
that they are the victims of social wrong, that 
their lot is a much harder one than it need be, and 
that the existing arrangements of society are wholly 
unsatisfactory. This feeling is deeply rooted in the 
minds of many who would utterly oppose any violent 
or revolutionary method of securing justice. The 
patience of the million, as Kuskin has pointed out, 
is one of the most pathetic and wonderful facts of 
human history. A few are maddened into despera- 
tion, but the immense majority submit sadly and 
weariedly to their fate. They are none the less 
dissatisfied with it, and none the less hopeful that 
some way of escape may be discovered for their 
children. What the deep, God-inspired conscience 
of the masses of the people really means by justice 
has been happily defined by Mr. Benjamin Kidd in 


264 


ESSENTIAL CHRISTIANITY. 


his remarkable book, as “ equality j^ opportunity.” 
No sane man is so unreasonable as to suppose that 
under any conceivable circumstances we can all be 
physically, mentally, or spiritually alike. But what 
the moral portion of the human race are seeking 
more and more definitely and irresistibly is “ equality 
of opportunity.” There are still many in our midst 
who are, in the terrible language of Charles Kingsley, 
“ damned from their birth.” Humanly speaking, they 
never have a chance, they are so heavily handicapped 
in the race of life, that their fate is settled before 
they start. Lovers of mankind do not resent natural 
differences which are inevitable, and when rightly 
used most beneficial. But artificial differences, arti- 
ficial privileges, artificial perquisites, artificial mono- 
polies are becoming increasingly intolerable to every 
enlightened conscience, except so far as they exist 
for the real benefit not of individuals or groups, but 
of the entire community. No man, in the judgment 
of those who are morally most enlightened, “does 
justice ’* who does not strenuously endeavour to secure 
for every human being born in the land, a real 
opportunity of reaching the highest spiritual, mental, 
and physical perfection of which he is capable. Any 
one who places or sanctions an unnecessary barrier 
in the pathway of his brother’s progress and develop- 
ment is an “ unjust ” man. Occasional sympathy or 
even systematic charity is no substitute for inherent 
and fundamental Justice. Those who are most in 
sympathy with Jesus Christ demand for every man a 


MICAH S IDEAL OP RELIGION. 


265 


real opportunity of achieving his highest and best ; 
and all the laws and customs of human society must 
be changed to whatever extent may be found neces- 
sary to secure this inalienable birthright for every 
human being. That is the first peculiarity of ideal 
religion to-day. 

The second great feature of it, as defined by the 
prophet Micah, is to “ love mercy,” not merely to show 
it occasionally or impulsively, but to love it, to rejoice 
in it, to make it the very texture of our life. In a 
word, as our first duty is to emulate the Justice of 
God, our second is to emulate what the Spectator , 
in a remarkable article recently described as the 
“ Magnanimity ” of God. We have glimpses of that 
glorious attribute in the paradoxical passages in the 
Sermon on the Mount, which have proved so great a 
source of perplexity to Count Tolstoi and his dis- 
ciples. It was said of old, even by religious teachers, 
“ An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth.” “ But 
I say unto you,” exclaims the Great Master, “ resist 
not him that is evil : but whosoever smiteth thee on 
thy right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if 
any man would go to law with thee and take away 
thy coat, let him have thy cloak also. And whoso- 
ever shall compel thee to go one mile, go with him 
twain. Give to him that asketh thee, and from him 
that would borrow of thee, turn not thou away. Ye 
have heard that it was said, Thou shalt love thy 
neighbour and hate thine enemy; but I say unto 
you, Love your enemies, and pray for them that 


266 


ESSENTIAL CHRISTIANITY. 


persecute you; that ye may be the sons of your 
Father which is in heaven : for He maketh His sun 
to rise on the evil and the good, and sendeth rain on 
the just and the unjust ” (Matt. v. 39 to 45). In- 
stead of thirsting for revenge we should thirst for 
mercy. Instead of wishing the wicked to be 
punished, we should glory in every opportunity of 
melting and winning their hearts, and saving them 
even from the just penalty of their evil deeds. 
Punishment in our thoughts must never be vindictive 
and retributive, but always disciplinary, educative, 
reformatory, and beneficent. Instead of “helping 
the deserving,” as some excellent persons and insti- 
tutions strangely boast they do, we should gladly 
take every opportunity of helping the undeserving, 
although it should, of course, be our ceaseless en- 
deavour to help them really, and not to encourage 
them in vice or indolence. This gentle, patient, 
sweet, forgiving, optimistic Magnanimity is the 
second essential feature of true religion. 

And the third, as Micah declares, is to “walk 
humbly with God/’ that s to say to realise that in 
our own strength and by our own efforts we are 
morally incapable either of Justice or of Magnani- 
mity as now defined. The ethical ideal which has 
been set before us in the first part of this defini- 
tion of true religion, is unobtainable except by the 
grace of God, and in the strength which He gives us. 
In a recent number of the Animal’s Friend , there 
appeared a letter, never before published, written 


micah’s ideal of religion. 


267 


by the late Lord Shaftesbury to Miss Frances 
Power Cobbe, acknowledging a poem she had sent 
him on his eightieth' birthday. It is of such excep- 
tional significance, and throws so much light upon 
the career of the good Earl that I reproduce it at 
length : — 

“ Dear Miss Cobbe — I will tell you the origin of 
my public career, which you have been so kind as 
to commend. It arose while I was a boy at Harrow 
School, about, I should think, fourteen years of age. 
An event occurred (the details of which I may give 
you some other day), which brought painfully before 
me the scorn and neglect manifested towards the 
poor and helpless. I was deeply affected ; but, for 
many years afterwards, I acted only on feeling and 
sentiment. As I advanced in life, all this grew up 
to a sense of duty ; and I was convinced that God 
had called me to devote whatever advantages He 
might have bestowed upon me, to the cause of the 
weak, the helpless, both men and beast, and those 
who had none to help them. I entered Parliament 
in 1826, and I commenced operations in 1828 with 
an effort to ameliorate the conditions of lunatics; 
and then I passed on in a succession of attempts to 
grapple with other evils, and such has been my trade 
for more than half a century. Do not think for a 
moment that I claim any merit. If there be any 
doctrine that I dislike and fear more than another, 
it is the ‘Doctrine of Works.’ Whatever I have 
done has been given to me ; what I have done, I was 


268 


ESSENTIAL CHRISTIANITY. 


enabled to do ; and all happy results (if any there 
be) must be credited, not to the servant, but to the 
great Master who led and sustained him. My course, 
however, has raised up for me many enemies, and 
very few friends; but among those friends I hope 
that you may be numbered.” 

There is much in this letter that furnishes scope 
for reflection and comment, but I limit myself to the 
two main points. First, the starting-point of his 
beneficent career was the discovery that those with 
whom he usually associated “ manifested scorn and 
neglect towards the poor and helpless.” There is no 
doubt that the moral watershed of the human race, 
the great dividing-line between the truly religious 
and the really irreligious, is the attitude they respec- 
tively assume towards “ the poor and helpless.” So 
long as we cherish or exhibit, even unconsciously, 
that “ scorn and neglect for the poor and helpless ” 
which is one of the evil traditions of the World, 
we cannot understand God, we are incapable of 
entering into the mind of Christ, we can never 
properly sympathise with the work of Christ. 

But, secondly, the fact to which I invite your atten- 
tion now is the acknowledgment at the end of the 
letter that whatever Lord Shaftesbury was able to 
achieve, under the impulse of that sympathy with the 
poor which he received from Christ, he achieved by 
“ walking humbly with- God,” that is, by trusting in 
God rather than by trusting in his own strength or 
his own wisdom. “ Whatever I have done has been 


MIC ah’s ideal of religion. 269 

given to me ; what I have done I was enabled to do,” 
and he adds that, therefore, all the credit of his 
achievements must go to “ the great Master,” who 
led and sustained him. We cannot exaggerate the 
importance of this testimony. It would have been 
impossible for Lord Shaftesbury to have done the 
great work of his life, unless God had given him 
supernatural strength. In other words, it would 
have been impossible for him to “ do justly ” or to 
“ love mercy ” in the large, rich, Christian sense in 
which he exhibited both of these divine qualities, 
unless he had also “ humbly walked with God.” 
These three, Justice, Magnanimity, and Dependence 
upon God are inseparable. 

In the Nineteenth Century for the month of De- 
cember, 1885, Professor Huxley gives a very elo- 
quent and memorable description of the teaching of 
Micah. Here are the words which Professor Huxley 
used : “ In the eighth century B.C., in the heart of a 
world of idolatrous polytheists, -the Hebrew prophets 
put forth a conception of religion which appears to 
me as wonderful an inspiration of genius as the art 
of Pheidias or the science of Aristotle. ‘He hath 
shewed thee, 0 man, what is good ; and what doth 
Jehovah require of thee, but to do justly, and to love 
mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God ? ’ If any 
so-called religion takes away from this great saying 
of Micah I think it wantonly mutilates, while if it 
adds thereto, I think it obscures the perfect ideal of 
religion.” In Professor Huxley’s judgment Micah’s 


270 


ESSENTIAL CHRISTIANITY. 


definition is “ the perfect ideal of religion.” It is 
true that Professor Huxley calls this wonderful 
sentence an inspiration of “ genius,” and he has no 
other explanation to give us. I have noticed before 
now that the word “ genius ” is as great a comfort to 
Professor Huxley as the word Mesopotamia was to 
an excellent lady who sat under the teaching of 
George Whitefield. Unless my memory is at fault, 
Professor Huxley found the word “ genius ” very 
convenient and very edifying at the end of his 
singularly interesting little volume on Hume. At 
the close of that book he was face to face with 
Christ, and he was, therefore, obliged to give some 
explanation of Christ. The only explanation he 
could give was that Christ was a religious “ genius.” 
That verbal fig-leaf is not large enough to cover 
Professor Huxley’s philosophical nakedness. A 
moment’s reflection must convince any one that the 
word “ genius ” takes us no farther, and is merely an 
ingenious way of explaining that Professor Huxley 
has no explanation. What does he mean by genius ? 
He has simply uttered a sound which in this con- 
nection, without any definition, is absolutely meaning- 
less. The word genius gaily tossed in, no more 
explains the spiritual insight of Micah than it 
explains the unique life of Christ. 

But apart altogether from that obvious gap in 
Professor Huxley’s logic, it is evident that his 
admirable statement has one great defect. He tells 
us that Micah’s definition is “the perfect ideal of 


micah’s ideal of religion. 271 

religion”; but he does not give us the remotest hint 
how this ideal is to be realised. He practically 
ignores the third part of the definition, the walking 
humbly with God. He is most creditably filled with 
admiration for Justice and Mercy, but how are we 
mortals to exhibit Justice and Mercy? Micah says 
only by walking humbly with God ; what has Pro- 
fessor Huxley to say ? He has indeed of late years 
made remarkable progress, and realised the startling 
antagonism between the “ cosmical man ” and the 
“ethical man”; but how is the ethical man to 
prevail over the cosmical man, and to achieve the 
Justice and Mercy which are so utterly opposed to 
human selfishness? What is the use of setting 
before us a lovely ideal that is beyond our reach, 
that we cannot turn into practice ? All serious men 
are now happily agreed that true religion is ethical, 
and that the very essence of true religion is to do 
justly, and to love mercy. It is a great gain that so 
far we are unanimous. But now comes the crux. 
At this point we have to consider how theory can 
be turned into practice, how we are not merely to 
admire an ideal definition of religion in the pages of 
the Nineteenth Century , but to live it in social inter- 
course, in the pursuit of our daily avocation, and in 
the discharge of our public duties? That is the 
question ! Religion is nothing unless it is practical. 
We do not want a vision of lovely conduct painted 
on an empty cloud above our heads : we want to 
realise it in our own heart-blood. How are we to do 


272 


ESSENTIAL CHRISTIANITY. 


that ? The more clearly we understand what Justice 
and Mercy i ly mean, the more utterly shall we 
despair of being in our OWn strength and by our 
own unaided resources, either just or merciful. As 
the true connotation of this definition of religion is 
more fully and clearly revealed to us, the possibility 
of achieving it recedes farther and farther from our 
view — unless there be some source of strength which 
Professor Huxley has not yet explained to us, but 
which, let me once more remind you, is an essential 
part of the original definition of Micah. 

In all ages men have been conscious that there 
was a great gulf fixed between their highest concep- 
tions of goodness and their actual conduct. How to 
bridge that gulf is the question. Micah knew, as his 
language shows : and some of us know even better 
than he, for the Saviour of men and nations, whom 
he dimly foresaw, has come and lived among us. We 
have heard His voice and beheld His face. He pours 
power into strengthless souls, and life into the dead. 
I recall at this moment the scene at the pool of 
Bethesda. “ A certain man was there which had 
been thirty and eight years in his infirmity ” (John 
v. 5). Jesus Christ, who knew him better than he 
knew himself ; J esus Christ, before whose eyes his 
sad history lay disclosed, said, “ Wouldest thou be 
made whole ? ” The sick man began a long and 
weary statement of the reasons why he had never 
been cured before, how he had tried again and again 
and again, and how he was now lying there, out of 


micah’s ideal of religion. 


273 


mere habit, without any hope that any t good would 
ever come of it. Christ arrested hinfi-irthe midst of 
his voluble despair, and in strong, hopeful, imperial 
words, exclaimed: “Arise, take up thy bed, and 
walk.” In a moment the man was filled with new 
life. He took up his bed and walked! It was a 
typical incident. How many there are who have 
striven in their own strength again, and again, and 
again to “ do justly ” and to “ love mercy ” and they 
have failed and failed utterly. At last they despair 
of ever achieving that ideal life which, in their 
noblest moments, had passed before their souls. 
They abandon themselves to a narrow, commonplace 
conventional existence. Then Christ stands before 
them — as He stands before you now ; and He asks 
them whether they would like to lead another and a 
better life, an ideal life — as He asks you now. Do 
not attempt to explain to Christ why you have not 
led this ideal life hitherto. He knows. He knows 
better than you how sincerely you have desired to 
lead it. But you have failed, and your extremity is 
His opportunity. It is because you cannot lead such 
a life in your own strength that He now says to you, 
“ Wouldest thou be made whole ? ” He does not ask 
you whether you are able to be made whole. He only 
enquires whether you are willing to allow Him so to 
use the omnipotence of God as to make it possible 
for you to “ do justly ” and to “ love mercy.” If you 
are willing He will this very moment give you moral 
power to realise Micah’s “ perfect ideal of religion,” 

T 
















































































































THE CAKOL OF THE NATIVITY. 


1 Peace among men in whom He is well pleased.” — Luke ii. 14. 


THE CAROL OF THE NATIVITY. 


T HOSE English readers who unfortunately know 
only the Authorised Version of the English 
Bible will scarcely recognise the words of the text. 
They are the revised and correct translation of one 
of the most familiar passages in the Bible. We and 
our fathers for many a generation have read, and 
heard, and uttered the familiar and melodious carol, 
“ Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, 
good will towards men.” There is no substantial 
or ultimate difference between the Revised Version 
and the Authorised Version. After due explanation 
it will be discovered that both forms of expression 
signify the same thing, although there is no doubt 
that in this case, as in nearly all cases, the Revised 
Version is more correct and more intelligible too, 
when we have once taken the trouble to understand 
it. The Authorised Version is laconic and elliptical. 
It means obviously, however, that earth is the spot 
on which the Nativity of our Lord produces “ peace ” 
and exhibits “ the good will ” or “ the good pleasure ” 
of God toward men. 


278 


ESSENTIAL CHRISTIANITY. 


I cannot but regret that the revisers of the Autho- 
rised Version did not go a little further, and correct 
the punctuation as well as the language of the famous 
words with which the choir of angels saluted the 
birth of Jesus. Few, I apprehend, would be disposed 
on reflection to deny that the words “ and on earth ” 
belong to the first line rather than to the second in 
which it is now printed. The two lines of the 
heavenly carol, when they have been revised both in 
language and in punctuation, stand thus : — 

“ Glory to God in the highest and on earth, 

Peace among men in whom He is well pleased.” 

Eightly does the heavenly host demand that glory 
should be ascribed to God in heaven above as well 
as in the earth beneath, for that final and crowning 
revelation of His love which was made in the Incar- 
nation is a revelation which has brought new light 
and new joy to heaven as well as to earth. But how 
are we to understand the second line of the revised 
couplet, which forms our text ? It teaches that the 
Incarnation which brings glory to God brings peace 
to men in whom God is well pleasedi This striking 
and remarkable description of men is parallel with 
the words used by the Father at the baptism of 
Jesus Christ. As Christ rose from the Jordan the 
voice of the Eternal said, “ This is my beloved Son, 
in whom I am well pleased ” (Matt. iii. 17). In our 
text exactly the same phrase is used of mankind as 
a whole. God is “ well pleased in ” men as He is 


THE CAROL OF THE NATIVITY. 279 

“ well pleased in ” His beloved Son. Of course, if 
the language of the angels means anything it means 
all men — not merely Christian men, but sinful men 
of every race and of every creed : mankind as a whole. 

But you will very properly ask at once, “ In what 
sense can God be well pleased with all mankind ? 
He cannot be well pleased with their sins, or even 
with their folly.” No ! He is well pleased with all 
men in so far as all men are capable of salvation in 
Christ, are capable, that is to say, of being made 
Christlike. On the other hand, as He declared at 
the baptism of Christ in the Jordan, He is well pleased 
with Christ as being actually and already all that He 
intended every man to be when He declared, on the 
sixth day of the creation, that man, the final outcome 
and masterpiece of the evolution of the world, was 
“very good” (Gen. i. 31). In a word, Christ is 
actually what every man is potentially. Christ is 
the new Head of humanity, “ the last Adam ” (1 Cor. 
xv. 45). Christ realises the divine ideal of man. 
He is the proof and pledge of what every man may 
yet become. When the sculptor sees the rough, 
unhewn marble, he is “ well pleased ” with it, not 
because it is shapeless and rough and ugly, and for 
immediate purposes useless, but because it is capable 
of being chiselled into forms of enduring beauty and 
service. The incarnation of the Eternal Word is the 
definite, concrete, decisive evidence of what human 
nature can become when sin is eliminated. The 
only essential difference between “ the man Christ 


280 


ESSENTIAL CHRISTIANITY. 


Jesus ” and every man is, that Christ is sinless and 
we are sinful. Take away sin and every man will be 
like Christ. Human nature is the stuff out of which 
the sanctifying Spirit of God can create multitudes 
of Christlike beings. In that stuff', therefore, the far- 
seeing and loving eye of God is well pleased. God 
ever realises the profound truth which justified the 
sublimely audacious statement of Tertullian that the 
soul of man is*“ naturally Christian.” In the deepest 
sense it is “ unnatural ” for us to sin. Sin is as un- 
natural in the soul as disease in the body. We never 
become what God intended us to be, what we ought 
to be, what we were created to be, until we are 
delivered from sin. 

It may be noted further that the carol of the 
Nativity was really the birth-song of Democracy. 
Although we have now fully entered upon a demo- 
cratic era, the majority of mankind seem to have the 
vaguest and most inconsistent ideas as to what 
Democracy is. The fundamental and fatal mistake 
is to confound our democracy with ancient “ demo- 
cracy.” It is a totally different thing. As I cannot 
too frequently remind you, the democracy of Athens 
was a privileged and absolute oligarchy. Three- 
fourths of that falsely-called “ Eepublic ” were slaves, 
the goods and chattels of the rest. Until Christ 
came, the essentially modern conception of Demo- 
cracy had never entered any human brain. Only in 
our own time are we beginning to realise the demo- 
cratic doctrine of Jesus Christ. Sitting at His feet, 


THE CAROL OF THE NATIVITY. 


281 


listening to His voice, pondering His life, we may be 
able to define onr new and unprecedented Democracy 
thus : It is the supremacy of man as man, it is the 
declaration that man as man is greater than rank or 
wealth can ever make him. It is the principle which 
demands “ equality of opportunity ” for every man, 
on the ground that every man is a child of God, and 
has essentially the same nature as every other man. 
The effect of this absolutely new conception is revo- 
lutionising human society throughout the entire civi- 
lised world. It is everywhere substituting Character 
for Cash, and Brains for Birth. It is the most radi- 
cal revolution the human race has ever experienced 
and it is absolutely irresistible. 

The advent of Democracy by no means implies 
that all men are at this moment equally ready to 
discharge all the duties of redeemed mankind. It is 
becoming increasingly evident to keen and sober 
observers that the qualifications for the discharge of 
all human duties are moral rather than intellectual, 
that in public as well as in private life we need 
goodness immeasurably more than cleverness. The 
vast majority of the human race are as yet unfit for 
representative or even constitutional government, 
not so much in consequence of their intellectual 
condition as in consequence of their moral condition. 
Neither Asia, nor Africa, nor South America is really 
ripe for the democratic institutions which exist in 
this country. And those European races which 
rejected the Deformation and its higher ethical 


282 


ESSENTIAL CHRISTIANITY. 


standard are visibly losing ground in the race and 
slowly perishing, because the morality of the Middle 
Ages is not sufficiently exalted to fit men for political 
freedom. The humiliation, the constant decay, and 
the helpless drifting of France from Anarchy to 
Csesarism, and from Csesarism to Anarchy, are the 
direct results of the enormous national crimes com- 
mitted at the Massacre of St. Bartholomew’s Day, 
and at the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes. Then, 
as Carlyle said, France K let out her best blood ” and 
sank to a permanently lower moral level. The real 
condition both of freedom and of progress is moral 
character. When that is sacrificed the most brilliant 
genius, the highest learning, and the utmost fertility 
of the soil are alike unable to save any people. 

While, therefore, we gather from the carol of the 
Nativity that all men are dear to God, redeemed by 
Christ, and capable of being made like Christ, it by 
no means follows that all men are equally ripe for 
democratic institutions, or for the full enjoyment of 
all that Christ has made possible for them in this 
world. Nevertheless, however degraded ethically 
many of the heathen races are, and however degenerate 
many peoples that dare to call themselves Christian 
are, the fact remains that human nature is such in 
every man as to be cajpax Dei — capable of God, 
capable of being made like Christ by the miraculous 
agency of the indwelling Spirit of Christ. It is 
necessary to dwell constantly upon this fact in order 
that we may treat every human being with the 


THE CAROL OF THE NATIVITY. 


283 


reverence and hopefulness with which Christ treated 
even the most degraded and ignorant; and also 
because nothing will do so much to promote the 
salvation both of individuals and of races as to inspire 
men with a correct conception of their high calling 
in God, and their moral possibilities in Christ. No 
one can doubt that the saintly and gifted Channing 
was right when he contended that the low opinion 
of human nature which prevails almost everywhere, 
is the greatest curse of human life. This low opinion 
of human nature is a fearful perversion of the doc- 
trine of sin. As I have already said, sin is unnatural 
and unnecessary, and Christ has come into this world 
for the express purpose of saving us from sin. 

It is not fallen Adam, but Jesus Christ who is the 
true type and ideal of man. When we would know 
what may be done for human kind we should dwell 
not upon the Fall, but upon the Eedemption. We 
should look not at “ the first Adam,” but at “ the last 
Adam.” The cynic is one of the deadliest enemies 
both of God and of man. A low estimate of human 
nature chills the soul and blights all our hopes. 
Christ never treated any man or woman as beyond 
reclamation, or incapable of divine fellowship. How 
significant it is that the first great declaration of 
the absolute spirituality of the Christian religion was 
made to a degraded adulteress of Samaria, and that 
so far as we know the only person to whose house 
Christ ever invited Himself was the immoral and 
despised Zacchaeus! If men really believed the great 


284 


ESSENTIAL CHRISTIANITY. 


truth of which angels sang so rapturously on the first 
Christmas morning, all our hideous and desolating 
social evils would pass away for ever. War, for 
example, would be morally impossible if we saw 
every man in Christ, if we realised that every man 
might be, and ought to be, a Christian. We are 
always imputing the worst motives to one another, 
putting the worst construction on one another's 
conduct, and appealing to the lowest influences. 
Suppose we altered all that; suppose we were, like 
God, “well pleased” with all mankind; suppose we 
realised that if there is a demon in every man there 
is also a Christ in every man, and then appealed to 
the Christ that is in every man, what would be the 
result ? Beautiful and stupendous miracles. 

Not long ago a gentle Christian lady went to a 
house of infamy in London to see a fallen girl whom 
she hoped to rescue. The door of that house was 
opened by one of those ferocious bullies who are em- 
ployed in such establishments to negotiate between 
the victims and their clients. For a moment she 
was terrified at the fiendish appearance of this 
monster of iniquity. It was a low neighbourhood ; 
she was far from home; she was alone. But, in- 
spired of God, she resolved to appeal to the better 
self even of that foul and savage man. Taking her 
well-filled purse out of her pocket, she suddenly 
placed it in his hands and said, “ I do not like to take 
my purse about here, will you please keep it for me 
until I return ? ” The man was speechless with 


THE CAROL OF THE NATIVITY. 


285 


amazement : a tear burst from his eye. She passed 
on. In that vestibule of hell she found the girl and 
arranged for her delivery. After some interval the 
lady returned to the door, and there was the man 
where she left him, with her well-filled purse in his 
hand. He restored it to her, not a single penny 
had been taken from it. For the first time in his 
life, probably, he found himself trusted by a lady. 
It appealed to all the courtesy and nobility that 
was left, or that was undeveloped in his nature. 
He responded at once to that appeal, and proved 
worthy of that confidence. 

Let me give you another illustration of the way in 
which an appeal to the better self works miracles. In 
America there are some prisons for women prisoners 
under the charge of women. There was a criminal 
woman who had driven men jailers and men warders 
almost to despair. She had been placed in solitary 
confinement; she had been tied and bound; but 
whenever she was free she fought like a tigress with 
all who came near her. A little Quaker woman 
in charge of another prison had the reputation of 
being very successful in dealing with unmanageable 
prisoners. The despairing men determined that the 
virago in their hands should be transferred to the 
Quakeress. With immense difficulty they conveyed 
her, fastened to a chair, from one prison to another, 
and with a great sense of relief deposited the chair 
and its tightly-bound prisoner upon the stone floor 
of the entrance-hall of the women’s prison. The 


286 


ESSENTIAL CHRISTIANITY. 


little Quakeress appeared and said at once, “ Loose 
the woman.” “ Why,” replied the warders who had 
conveyed her there, “ w T e dare not ; she fights with us 
like a wild animal. Our very lives will be in dan- 
ger. It was with the utmost difficulty that a large 
number of us overcame her and fastened her to this 
chair.” “ Loose her at once,” said the little Quakeress, 
and, yielding to her gentle determination, but with 
the greatest amazement and alarm, they obeyed her. 
When every bond had been removed, the little 
jaileress suddenly threw her arms round the woman’s 
neck and kissed her. The was an instantaneous 
transformation. The whole aspect of the savage 
prisoner changed. She burst into a flood of tears, 
and sank almost helpless on the ground. From that 
moment until the hour of her release she never gave 
any one who had charge of her the least trouble or 
anxiety. 

Undoubtedly, Count Tolstoi is perfectly right when 
he says that we cannot overcome evil by resisting it. 
As John Bright declared, “Force is no remedy.” 
Love is the only remedy. Trustfulness and goodwill 
are the only irresistible weapons. God Himself 
tames and saves us by making His sun to shine upon 
the evil and upon the good, and by sending rain upon 
the just and the unjust. Let us place ourselves at 
the divine standpoint. Let us also be “ well pleased ” 
with all men as capable of redemption and salvation 
and Christ-likeness. Let us approach them hopefully, 
trustfully, tenderly. Let the carol of the Nativity 


THE CAROL OF THE NATIVITY. 28 ? 

echo in our souls, in our words, and in our deeds. 
What would he the result? The accomplishment 
of all our hopes, and the dawn of the millennium. If 
the policy of the angelic song which we have now 
pondered became the policy of ecclesiastics, what 
would be the result ? The re-union of Christendom. 
If it were adopted by Capital, what would be the re- 
sult ? The co-operation of Labour. And if it were 
embodied in the Foreign Office, what would be the 
result? International peace. When men accept 
the teaching of Christ to the extent of treating one 
another as He treats every one of them, the Carol of 
the Nativity will be no longer an inspiring ideal, 
a prophecy, a hope, but it will have become an ac- 
complished fact ; and the results of it will gladden 
every land and every heart. 

“ Amen : come, Lord J esus.” 




















































































































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